Sharingan is Red, Chidori is Blue
by Luster Shady
Summary: 'Twas in a moment of sudden irregularity, that I found my own self thrust into a life not of my choice, by an accident almost entirely of my own volition (Truck-kun was not involved in my death). Now, how to live with this new mask, when I'm used to not wearing any? OC-Insert as Sasuke.
1. Chapter 1

So this plunny wormed it way into my mind and hampered my writing for weeks. Because my other story went from Semi-SI to I Can't Make This Any Sort of SI because I didn't want to hamper the plot, leaving a lot of it to canon characters...Anyway, here's another SI, without death by vehicle collision! Enjoy!

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 **Chapter 1: In which a child believes he is in Hell, and therefore, he is.**

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 _"The sign of a good fanfiction is when chapters begin with a quote in italics by personalities we know are smart but have rarely studied of our own volition." -Aster (me)_

* * *

It began innocently enough; my descent into darkness.

I was a normal boy, if not for my penchant to expect the world around me to be ignorant of the potential I held within myself, how the only wall between me and my dreams was the lack of time due to school, chores, and whatever else detracts a sixteen year old from filling his existence with purpose.

For born are we free, yet taught the lesson of dust.

I did not die from a collision with any sort of vehicle. Alcohol was not involved from my end either. None is the greater intoxicant other than youth.

All it takes is one moment of recklessness in a desire to prove myself to no one in particular; using parkour to get to school in time after last night's rain was a thrilling, but quite unwise decision. For I lived in New York and had to scale quite a few sky-high buildings to get to school.

But come now, is not life an experiment, in all its danger and charm? For one moment I shut my eyes to the over cast sky, the wind flapping through my clothes and whistling in my ears hundreds of stories from Earth and the next instant feeling like feeling myself collide onto a mattress as if I had fallen from a great height.

There was no excessive pain, and all external stimuli vanished, serving only to make the silence that followed one of the most anxious moments I had ever faced in my life.

With apprehension, I opened my eyes. Into my vision came a featureless white roof. Slowly I rose, and began observing my current location, a room that could have been an apartment in Japan. There was a low table, _tatami_ mats on the floor, which itself was raised with a small portion in front of the door where one would remove their shoes.

Had the Earth spun enough while I was in mid-air for me to crash into another country? The scenario was only as implausible as falling from hundreds of feet and waking up completely uninjured, only with a disorientation that dissipated by the second. And someone had apparently taken me to their home instead of a hospital, even changing me out of my clothes into a blue shirt and grey pyjamas.

Let us not discuss the embarrassment I felt upon sensing nothing beneath the pyjamas.

Flexing my strangely callused hands, I felt power thrumming through my core and flipped off the bed in one smooth motion, landing lightly on the floor without a sound.

 _Huh?_ I wondered at the abnormally agile movement. It felt as if my body was a finely-tuned machine, my gait feather-footed as I moved about the room, looking for someone else until I opened the door and found the bathroom, a mirror right in front.

Blinking, I closed the door. And then re-opened it. And then I began to repeat the two motions, increasingly frantic until I slammed the door aside and rushed inside, hands slamming on the sink before I crashed into the glass.

"What." Said I in a smooth voice not my own. Panic rose within me and the situation was not at all helped by the fact that my irises transitions into red, a single comma revolving around my dilating pupil.

Staring back at me was the face of Uchiha Sasuke, genin of Konoha.

So, I fell from a skyscraper and after the hypnic jerk of a lifetime, found myself in an Anime that I was intimately familiar with, into the body of someone who going to be in the centre of a maelstrom of shite.

And you know what? I was okay.

Like Sasuke, I didn't have family. I lived with someone who really couldn't bother looking for me if I went missing, and most importantly, I'd never have to hand in those assignments I was overdue with!

Heaving a great sigh, I calmed down and became acutely aware of a feeling around my eyes, more along the lines of reinforcement than tension, and tried to will it away.

It worked, and the Sharingan faded. To experiment, I tried to recall the same sensation and lo and behold, the Uchiha bloodline resurfaced, tinting my vision a slight red.

Considering the circumstances which invoke this ability, I hereby have a new way of looking at the phrase, 'Seeing red'.

Immediately I began to investigate the apartment, finding a variety of healthy food in the fridge, all of it packaged with the symbol of the leaf on the wrappers. Good with sharp objects and slicing things ninja might be, but it would seem many do not bother with cooking, if the food items that looked like the work of mass production was any clue, all by the same manufacturer.

There was an organized calendar standing upon the wooden dresser next to the bathroom door, which showed today to be the day teams were assigned at the start of the series. Inside a three drawer dresser were clothes (with a shiny forehead protector on them) at the top, new toiletries in the middle, and in its bottom drawer the ninja tools, already prepared in blue holsters and pouches.

Beneath the bed was a small safe, whose combination flashed through my head the moment I touched the knob. Setting aside my fascination I opened it to find a black wallet, decorated with a red and white fan, and did not bother with other important-looking documents initially.

There was a revealing bank book showing that its owner was not all that rich, and that Sasuke received a reasonable allowance. This prompted a look at the other pages in the safe, showing that aside from some important land such as his parents house, a pond, and some more plots for the future, everything else had been taken by the Village to be put to use, compensated monetarily from where the money he currently lived on came.

With everything in order, I looked at the wall to confirm how much time I had before seven, (when the Academy started, according to the last page of the calendar outlining his daily routine, which included nine hours of training and only seven hours of sleep, the heathen) and promptly began to get myself in order.

Checking myself in the mirror, my mind ran across the random fact that Charlie Chaplin once lost a contest in which all he had to do was look like himself. Would the same apply to me if I were to enter such a thing for cosplay?

Smirking at the thought, I tied the forehead protector securely and walked out the door, but not before my mind scrambled to find the key to the abode of the Last Uchiha so I could lock the door behind me.

* * *

The first thing I did when outside was the climb the roof of the building I was on and obtain the best vantage I could, before sitting down in the lotus position, taking in all of Konoha that I could.

The reason for this was simple.

In order to access any knowledge I suspected Sasuke might have, all I had to do was think about it, and it showed up in my mind, as with the safe and the location of apartment key.

I was not aware of the places in Konoha, therefore I spent a good ten minutes or so conjuring up every location Sasuke had knowledge of, and starting with the Ninja Academy to the place he trained at, shopped from, visited out of habit and the sort.

Once I had finished, I smiled. It was a beautiful day to walk to the Academy, and so I did.

After I tried falling from a roof to see if I could go back to my own world of course, for though the sight of the Hokage Monument was thrilling to see, I wanted to make sure I was not dreaming.

On the streets, it took great effort to not react whenever I came across someone dressed in the uniform of Konoha, or when I walked by a sight I had only witnessed behind a computer or mobile screen. It was hard playing a stoic character when I'm someone who'd rather have emotions on my face and control them, than to inhibit them in the first place.

It was only when I walked into the classroom with my memories accompanying me did I realize,

I had screwed up.

"Sasuke-kun!" chorused many shrill voices in mismatched harmony, causing me to flinch. Ignoring everything, not even pausing to see who or how many had called from where, I walked down and took a seat near the corner of a bench meant for three people, only a few steps away from the door in case I needed to exit.

Remembering the body language I was supposed to portray, (Shikamaru was still in this class after all) I slightly leaned on my elbows, crossing my fingers against my chin.

I did not bat an eye when Naruto made his entrance, nor did I pull out my hair when Sakura and Ino started arguing in raised voices.

"Oi you bastard," Naruto crouching in front of had my attention on all fronts. "What's so special about you anyway?"

SasuNaru fans, unto thee I say, no way in hell. I haven't kissed _anyone_ in my life.

Without even noticing I had my Sharingan on, just in time to see the moment Naruto got pushed from behind and was out of my seat faster than Kakashi removed and reapplied his mask during a meal.

The end result was the poor guy tripping over the desk and smashing his face on the spot I was seated at seconds ago. Enhanced healing or not, that looked like it hurt.

Quickly deactivating the Uchiha bloodline I sighed, before sitting at another empty space. Iruka-sensei came in soon afterwards and the team assignments began.

It went as normal, but I still felt relieved I hadn't ended up in some alternate universe of Naruto with different arrangements. The roll-calls also allowed me to check if any of the characters I knew had their genders swapped, but it turned out to be okay.

* * *

We sat on the roof as Kakashi finished his banal introduction two hours later, our teacher now waiting for us to follow his lead.

"My name is something you'd already know," I began to the obvious surprise of others, voice as flat as I could keep it. "I like the things I like, and don't like the things I dislike-" Kakashi's eye widened minutely and Naruto snickered besides me "and my dreams for the future are too dull a prospect to bore you with."

"Ha! My turn!" said a mischievous Naruto. "If you're a jounin you'd know my name as well. I like a lot of things I find fun, my dislikes include things which are not included in what I like, and you'd have to live under a rock to not know my dream, believe it!"

I turned to look at Naruto in pleasant shock, only to find him looking at me with his trademark grin. Reciprocating his gesture, I let out an Uchiha "HnTM."

Following our lead, Sakura's introduction was in the same vein. If Kakashi was not amused, he did not let it show. After informing us of the test tomorrow, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

 _I have got to learn to do that._ Getting up without a word, I took off in the direction of a training ground I'd gleaned from my memories near the former Uchiha district, ignoring whatever my future teammates were going to say.

For you see, even if I knew my own skills, there was plenty I had to learn, from Sasuke's own memories no less.

* * *

Landing swiftly in a clearing with plenty of trees, targets, training dummies and a small pond to boot, I placed my hands on my hips and threw up my head to stretch my back. Doing warm-up stretches, I went over Sasuke's overall routine mentally.

"Let's get to work then."

Forming a ram seal, I searched within me for chakra found it respond easily to my call, the foreign feeling pulsing from navel and circulating towards my chest, from my arms to the tips of my fingers, along my legs to the balls of my feet.

Opening my eyes, which I hadn't realized were closed, I let my arms hang by my sides and held onto the rush of power I felt. Eyeing a tree, I ran towards it on impulse, feeling a grin split my face at my acceleration.

Blue sandals made contact with dull brown bark and I soldiered onward with my momentum, clapping my hands mid-run as I tried to push out my chakra from the soles of my feet, feeling the surface of the tree slightly splinter.

Frowning, I reduced the flow, feeling quite adroit at the manipulation of chakra, perhaps due to hypersensitivity towards my latest physiological sense. And surprisingly, it worked as I began to slow down, feeling more confident as my steps began to slip less and began to feel more adhesive, until I was standing at ninety degrees with respect to the ground, jaw hanging open like an idiot.

 _Sasuke didn't have such good chakra control...was this all me?_ Cutting off the flow to my feet, I flipped towards a branch, kicking off from it towards a lower one before I finally landed on the grass, crouched with one hand on the ground.

Without missing a beat I launched myself into the trees, where the shuriken practice boards, my entire path a blur of green until I arrived at my destination. Constantly darting my eyes along the practice boards, I took my position in the centre of the clearing, trying to clear my mind and latch onto the memories of Sasuke training here.

Here, where Itachi used to come to train. Closing my eyes, I sought what I needed to know to perform the same things he did, the things Sasuke would do.

I was aware of that knowledge, but my mind was only assaulted with memory after memory of failure, attempt after attempt of Sasuke trying to hit the centre of each mark, before the sun was up, in the moonlight, when insects chirped ceaselessly, trying even after he was sweating in the falling snow.

I felt overwhelmed. Fear, respect lanced through me in equal measure. All of his hard work, blood, sweat and tears. My nails bit into my palm as I wondered where the poor boy was now.

 _If one day you come back, I'll let you know nothing you did went to waster. I will honour you, wherever your soul is._

I leapt into the air, hands nearly emptying my holster. The afternoon sky turned the slightest shade of red.

Eight kunais.

Two to the north, diagonally departing as one ascended and another descended.

Two to the south, one tilted towards the ground by barest touch of my left little finger.

Four more, thrown into the remaining directions as my ascent halted.

A moment of weightlessness. (I drew two more)

Gravity pulled and I lashed, chakra propelling the last of my kunai faster as they struck the pairs in the east and west, separating them by half a tangent.

I landed with nary a sound.

Collecting the blades, each lodged into the centre each target, I felt the strangest urge to cry.

But now was not the time. I had to practice my taijutsu, go through each form, and batter the training dummies until my knuckles, shins, knees and elbows felt like they would split open.

I had to throw rows of shurikens until my shoulders felt like they would pop out of their sockets. Throw, collect, repeat.

Go through several handseals per second until my activated Sharingan ingrained everything I was supposed to show, everything Uchiha Sasuke had cried blood to achieve. Feeling sorry for Sasuke, sorry for _myself,_ because that who I apparently was now.

My body began to protest in the evening; I had forgotten lunch, but lunch was not necessary. I was someone who achieved when I put my mind to it. And right now, my mind was not entertaining any thoughts food, of distraction.

Another Sasuke and I have in common, I noted.

Walking over to the pond, I tested walking on the water, but only managed a few steps. It was too random; too unstable. A voice at the back of my head suggested I was merely tired, but was ruthlessly quashed.

 _No excuses_. I still had chakra left.

With that thought I walked out of the shallow water and flipped through the handseals for the Fireball Jutsu, breathing slowly out, transforming an ember into a roaring flame as I poured chakra into it, drop by drop.

Sweat continuously dripped down my face even as I wiped it off. The blue cloth of my forehead protector was completely soaked. Only when I inhaled and noticed my choked throat did I realize tears were trailing down my cheeks.

Hastily rubbing them off my forearm protector, I took a deep breath and flipped through the seals for the technique again, this time my pouring all the chakra I could from the get-go, keeping sure to make it as efficient as possible.

 _Again_. I said to myself.

* * *

By the time dusk arrived, I felt like stumbling back to the apartment. But Uchiha Sasuke did not walk like a sleep-deprived drunk even after a harsh day of training, so I did not.

I emptied half a litre bottle of water when I reached home, followed by half a dozen onigiri with various fillings, a tomato and chicken sandwich and large glass of milk.

After a warm bath, scrubbing out all the grime and dirt I had accumulated, I sat to clean and sharpen my weapons without even bothering to dry myself completely in my new change of clothes, a collarless blue shirt and grey trousers. Memories came more sluggishly now that I was worked to the bone, but I managed mantainence without mishap.

Afterwards, I still had time before nine, which was allocated for going down into the market and buying breakfast for the next day, which I did so and upon returning finally brushed my teeth for turn in for the night.

Before next sunrise, I was up automatically, and ready for the day that lay ahead. They day I would become Uchiha Sasuke, member of Team Seven.

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Review? Follow? Favourite? Daheq did you just read?


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, this story of mine has got to have recieved the quickest responses ever. Many of you are worried that this will be dropped soon, but I'm writing this fic as stress relief. And I get stressed a lot about the world we live in, and my own helplessness, so you don't need to cross your fingers. And if anyone is willing to beta i.e wants to read the chapters early in exchange for pointing out any unfinished fragments of sentences, lemme know.

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 **Chapter 2: In which it's not just the Shinigami who loves apples**

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 _"How much fear does one feel in the incoming darkness of dusk? Go, ask the birds that have no home." ~Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib._

* * *

"Oi, bastard! You're late- are you... are you eating?!" Naruto was predictably outraged when I showed up near nine instead of seven. With an apple in my hand.

Hey, the fruit-seller let me pick them off a tree and they are so red and juicy! I wonder if I could sue those companies which guaranteed their apples were out of my previous world, because they tasted nothing like this fine specimen.

Taking out another from my pocket, where I had kept it wrapped in a black handkerchief, I held out with the left hand.

Surprise showed their faces at the gesture.

After a night of grief, I had decided that the more I tried to emulate Sasuke, the more depressed I would feel because his habits were self-destructive.

No hobbies or ways to relax?

Conversation with people kept to a bare minimum?

Nothing to indicate he visited any sort of health professional or a psychologist?

Left on his own without any change in routine so thoughts drifted towards limited topics?

Yeah...I respectfully decline. It's not as if I'm sinning, and if some day Sasuke does return, I've got it covered.

" _Teme_...what are you trying to pull?" Naruto squinted, as if he had never seen basic human decency before.

"Hn." I turned towards Sakura, who looked at me once, then received it with alacrity.

"Thanks, Sasuke-kun! But Kakashi-sensei said we-" I took a rather noisy bite, crunching the succulent flesh of this holy fruit and attained enlightenment once more as to how one could have gotten kicked out of heaven over it.

I love apples.

Sakura stared for a while, before taking an apprehensive nibble out of her own. Turning towards Naruto once more, I brought out my last fruit with more effort than I would ever admit.

" _Hn_."

"Fine! It's not like I'm hungry or anything, bastard."

He snatched it like the tsundere he was, but finished it at the same time as me. And I had a half-eaten apple to begin with, not to mention he even chewed and the core and spit out the seeds.

The blond seemed to notice my gaze and beamed. He knew that I knew.

"Hn." I let him know that I knew that that he knew I knew.

We were rivals.

Or maybe he just couldn't stay mad at someone once they were nice to him.

My musing was interrupted when there was a poof of smoke in our vicinity, and Kakashi appeared, catching the half eaten apple thrown by Sakura with ease as she proclaimed loud enough so perhaps the Hokage would hear, "YOU'RE LATE!"

"Huh, I thought I told you guys to not to eat any breakfast?"

"I didn't! But Sasuke brought apples and we were kinda hungry so- hey, you still didn't say why you were late! Why are you so late? You said seven!" Naruto flitted between sheepish and guilty at having disobeyed his teacher to suddenly angry.

"Sorry, there was a bird stuck in a tree and I had to go free it in a pond."

"You _what_?!" A spectre of disappointment glimmered in his wide, blue eyes but soon vanished.

"I helped a bird-"

"Screw this! We've lost enough time already, get on with it!" Naruto cut our teacher short and barely veiled amusement he explained the rules.

By the time he had said start, only Sakura had leapt away to hide, Kakashi standing aloof as always, Naruto with his arms hanging by his side, rearing to go until I raised a hand.

"I'm going home." Kakashi actually turned his head to look at me, rather than just moving his pupil as he was prone to do while Naruto spluttered incoherently.

"Don't you want to pass?" the jounin leaned forward slightly, chin in hand.

"Do I?" I shrugged, looking wistful as a breeze ruffled the bangs lining my jaw.

"Hey, hey, does this mean me and Sakura pass?" Naruto piped up. Kakashi ignored him, staring at me intently.

"I don't know Naruto, would you give up so Sasuke and Sakura can pass instead?"

"That's- Why would _I-_ I mean fine! If you don't want me on your team just say so! I'll get the old man to get me a teacher who shows up on time-" I could tell by the stiffness of his posture that Kakashi was growing more alarmed by the second, before he gained his bearings and interjected.

"You don't seem to be want to on a team with Naruto, is that why you're giving up Sasuke?"

Naruto cut himself, diverted towards me by our jerk of a jounin sensei. Quickly, I responded, "I want us all to pass, but you left me with no choice."

"Hmm, my first impression was right. I don't like you." At this point Sakura had joined us, just in time to hear his remark.

"What's going on here?" She darted her eyes around us, flummoxed.

"This bastard said he's giving up, but that jerk wants me to give up instead," The blond pointed first at me and then at Kakashi. "And I refuse!"

"Wait, why does Sasuke-kun want to give up?"

"Ask him!"

"Do you want to give up Sasuke-kun?"

"Hn?"

"But isn't being a ninja your dream? Weren't you an avenger?"

"Hn."

"Sensei let me give up instead! At least Sasuke can advance, right?"

"Hey! What about me Sakura-chan?" Naruto butted in. "Fine then, I give up! You go be with the bastard."

Kakashi covered his face with his hand. "I can't tell whether you're just being annoying or..."

"I give up for Naruto, who gives up for Sakura, who gives up for me. Isn't that _teamwork?_ "

"...or you've actually realized what this test about." Our future teacher lazily glanced at me.

"Wait, what?" Naruto blinked while Sakura came to the realization that normal teenagers would miss at first glance, after spending years at a school where the word of a teacher is law.

"You wanted us to fight amongst ourselves for the bells!" She exclaimed, followed by silence. I could imagine the gears spinning in Naruto's mind before it clicked, and he burst into a smile.

"So that's it? You don't want us to get the bells! You just want us you fight each other for them! Which is ruined if one of us does not...want to...?" He slowly turned to me, dawning on him what I was trying to do.

" _Hn_." I suppressed a smirk.

"Couldn't you just say so in the first place?"

"Enough," Kakashi cut in, sounding resigned. "Naruto, what was the purpose of this test?"

"Eh? Wasn't it for us to work together and take you down as a team? So, do we all pass?" The expression on his face clearly said he thought _but I can kick your ass on my own._

Kakashi smiled. Suddenly the air around us felt heavy, an ominous feeling pressing down on me. It was like that, without a single weapon being withdrawn or a punch being thrown, but killing intent around us borne out of irritation that Team Seven was formed.

"Let's go get a mission right now."

* * *

"Whoops," Kakashi, faster than I could blink, removed his hands from beneath Tora the cat just as Naruto handed it over to him at three in the afternoon, for the second time. "Sorry."

Letting out a strangled cry Naruto charged after the animal, only to collide into a pole as the damn animal slunk around the structure, its backbone easily twisting around it. Naruto walked on two legs and had failed to mimic it.

"You did that on purpose!" Sakura fell to her knees, at her limit. We still hadn't had lunch, or a proper breakfast in her and Naruto's case.

"Why would I?" The elite ninja had the gall to fake offense, eyes still on his Icha Icha.

 _One day, I will burn that shit with Amaterasu._

Eye twitching, I took a look at Sakura, the poor girl already having taken several breaks due to dizziness and feeling light-headed.

"Naruto." I said as he walked up behind me, massaging his head. Kakashi was still reading, but I had no doubt he was listening. "We're making a temporary tactical retreat due to one of our member's poor and declining state of health, especially as it poses no danger to the mission."

"What? Speak plainly." Said Naruto, then paused. "I think that's the longest sentence you've ever spoken."

Because our idiot of a jounin-sensei ordered you to give the cat to him each time and I'm _this_ close to spouting Obitio's famous quote if he does not let us take care of Sakura.

"Sakura needs food. We're taking a break."

"Hmm, did you superior officer say you could?" Kakashi drawled and two optimistic faces staring at him fell.

"You're just taking it out on us because we didn't fight each other for the bells like you wanted us to!" Naruto shook his fist at the masked man, about to pounce before I grabbed the scruff of his jacket. "Damn it, what kind of future Hokage let's his teammate suffer because of a stupid mission?"

"Orders are orders. Follow the rules, idiot." I let an indignant Naruto go and turned around, less to actually search for the damn cat again, and more to hide my smirk as Kakashi flipped a page.

"Maa, go ahead; I didn't say you could _not_ take a break. You guys go ahead, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Sakura nearly collapsed out of relief, had Naruto not caught her.

"You heard me." He was gone in a swirl of leaves and I realized I had been holding my breath.

"Ne, ne, I know this really great Ramen restaurant we can go to together Sakura-chan! You can come too," Naruto added as we began to walk, although the look he shot me showed great reluctance, whether out of a refusal he was already expecting or the fact that he wanted to be with just Sakura.

"Fine." I spoke as if I was doing him a favour. It would have suspicious to high five him.

Instant food was my life-blood. Because I rarely could afford to cook anything delicious myself, and the person responsible for me felt a ruffian like me could survive anything like a street dog, I had strong bond with food was warm and easy to make, such as cup-ramen.

Adding in an egg and a slice of cheese into the plastic container as it cooked was my idea of a lavish meal.

Naruto and Sakura looked a bit stunned, and were quiet the rest of the way to Ichiraku Ramen.

* * *

"What would you like?" Ayame asked me, gesturing to the board on the wall behind her which listed the menu alongside the prices for each meal. Once glance told me that miso, along with being Naruto's favourite, was also the cheapest.

"Miso." I said to Ayame.

"Oh, that's Naruto's favourite!" Her words caught the attention of the blond sitting between me and Sakura.

"Eh? See, even an idiot can tell miso is the best!"

"I was aware of that when she said it was _your_ favourite." I retorted dryly.

"You-"

"Naruto! No fighting at the table." Ayame spoke over the clatter of dishes as she began to set down our orders, all of them miso.

"Itadakimasu!" we prayed in various volumes before Naruto attacked his bowl like he was feasting on Tora's flesh. Sakura's pace was also hurried whilst I had to restrain myself.

Uchiha did not eat sloppily. I was trying to be without restraint, not manners.

"So, you guys are Naruto's new team eh?" Teuchi looked over the counter when he got a break from the other customers.

"Yeah! We're gonna be the best team Ojiisan!"

"I'm Haruno Sakura, Teuchi-san. The ramen is delicious."

"Uchiha Sasuke. Hn."

"Don't worry, he's always like that." Naruto clarified. "It's like he has his own language."

"Hn."

"See? Nothing to worry about!"

"Well then, congratulations on become Genin all of you! Here, another bowl for you on the house! It's _tonkatsu_ this time."

Teuchi timed his present at the right time, when all of our bowls were empty and quickly replaced by another. Sakura looked a bit apprehensive and Naruto, who had probably heard about her diet in the morning caught on instantly.

"Sakura-chan, you should eat more! You look like a skeleton!"

"He's right," Ayame interjected. "You'll thank yourself later when you're training."

"Yeah, you looked like you were gonna die on the mission! And that was only chasing after a cat, you'll need strength for when we go one real missions, believe it!"

"Hn." I encouraged eloquently.

And Sakura, because she was smart had an exasperated look as if she already knew the folly of her own mistakes. If anything, she looked averse to satisfying her hunger with fast-food only, which was also of smart.

In the end we finished and parted amicably, after Teuchi-san refused to charge us for all the bowls we had eaten. Considering how much Naruto had gulped, I wondered if the man received funds from the Hokage to keep his restaurant from going into the red.

 _More than likely._ I decided to myself as I walked steadily to my training location. Because I need more practice.

Once I had gone over Sasuke's knowledge, I had more to add from my own. It's not as if the world I had come from had no martial arts. Or that Naruto was the only anime I had watched.

But first, water walking. Although I can feel my own chakra, I feel it only faintly from others, if they make no effort to conceal it. I fancy I could refine it to a limited extent, but Sasuke himself was not a natural sensor Nin, relying more on Karin than his own ability.

But, there are no limits. If you know me, I'd probably jump off the Hokage Monument in an attempt to create a jutsu for flying...somehow, thinking of great heights causes me to shudder.

* * *

"Report, Kakashi." The Sandaime Hokage stood with his back to the masked jounin, gazing towards the village atop the red Hokage Tower. While he asked simply for the sake of formality, the old man was curious; in all his years, Team Seven under Kakashi received a mission first, and was finalized later.

"I was unable to determine their combat prowess, but they don't make shabby work of tracking, and their teamwork was more than acceptable."

 _Ah, yes_. Hiruzen mused. Catching Tora three times in one day was an accomplishment in itself. The animal was a fast learner with a good memory, giving genin a challenge each time it escaped, or was purposely let go.

"Anything worrying, individually?"

"None, Hokage-sama. The most problematic would have been Sasuke, but contrary to his reports, he showed up nearly two hours late, understood the test in an instant sought a solution without combat. Not that it's wrong, just..."

"He was behaving like a Nara?" The Hokage turned to the jounin behind him.

"Yes, Hokage-sama. I had expected he'd engage with me anyway to and make an effort to take the bells, but he chose to be unconventional."

"I see. Dismissed."

* * *

"Ha!" I exclaimed, standing with upside down beneath a branch, with the sun beginning to set and bathing the clearing in tones of orange and red. "Visualization did make control easier."

Although the end of the anime is filled with characters that are strong enough to belong in DBZ, the most proficient ninja like Kakashi and Itachi held their own through chakra control and intelligence, not simply the size of their techniques.

I won't deny the prospect of larger reserves, but the fact remains that the Copy Nin who collapses after each battle or the genius who ends up coughing blood had more to them than their Sharingan, having no such factors enhancing their stamina or health.

In other words, they were the closest ninjas to being human as I was before falling into this world, minus their chakra, the supply of which was ordinary compared to others.

Back to the topic of efficiency, my mono-tomoe Sharingan allowed me to see the chakra I exuded from the soles of my feet, much to my glee and allowed me to experiment.

Rather than using chakra as an adhesive, covering my entire foot and then sticking it to a surface, I tried to reduce the surface area from which chakra exited my body.

How? It involved running back to my apartment (without chakra, pure parkour for endurance) where Sasuke's memories told me was a complete anatomy scroll that listed all the _tenketsu_ in the body.

Once I memorized those, I returned to back to practice, making a point to only release chakra from the area around my selected tenketsu. Anyone that has ever owned football shoes would realize the leap in efficiency when I had the method down to pat.

Not before I littered my back with bruises and my legs trembled with exhaustion. Due to lesser surface area, I had to readjust to the amount of extra chakra because the weight of my body against gravity was still the same, and more tenketsu points had to be used than originally designated because the bark would crack frequently.

Time required for this trial and error cut into other sections of my practice, but it worked since ninjutsu had to stop early due to how strained my chakra network was. With the night coming I realized my Sharingan did grant me ease in training without a source of light, even if it was eerie watching the glowing red irises reflect in the surface of the pond.

(Imagine being alone in the night with a pair of red eyes staring back at you).

I had to stop myself from skipping home on the way back because of how happy I was with my success. A warm bath helped relax my sore muscles before I headed out to buy food, and also visited a pharmacy to get some salve to help with the injuries I'd accumulated from falling too much.

After a meal of onigiri, a six-pack filled with various flavourings, I applied the salve and sat down shirtless for weapon maintenance, sharpening my kunai carefully wiping my arsenal with an oiled cloth to prevent rusting before arranging my holster and pouches. They went into the bottom drawer of the dresser from where I'd take them tomorrow.

Determined to wake up on time tomorrow, I turned the light off and went to bed.


	3. Chapter 3

Beta'd by **Willowtuft**.

To the guest who reviewed, please re-read the summary. And the divergent events in this chapter, I dedicate to RadioPoisoning. As for the other reviewers, you too are lovely, wonderful beings who gave the most pleasant shock with how much love this story has received so far.

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 **Chapter 3: The decanters; new, the drink; new, even the drinkers; new.**

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* * *

 _"But still try, for who knows what is possible." ~Michael Faraday._

* * *

 _You're not even worth killing._

But I'm worth betraying the village you killed the clan for, if anything were to happen to me.

 _Foolish little brother. Your hatred is not strong enough._

But you did what you did out of love.

 _Hate me, detest me, curse me, and live in an unsightly way._

Stop it. This hurts you more than it hurts me.

 _Run, run away and cling to your pitiful life-_

Niisan, please...

"...please..." I croaked, coming to. I had no will to move even my hand towards the bottle of water atop the side-table. A dry throat was beneath my notice.

It hurt, but there was no wound. My heart did not beat; it merely throbbed, and its suffering kept me alive. It felt like hours had passed before the call of nature forced me to move towards the bathroom.

The mirror showed my haggard face, hair askew and Sharingan swimming in tears, with lines trailing down my face. I stroked my chest lazily, no longer feeling any pain beneath.

 _Itachi._

Before I could have taken out a kunai and slashed my own forehead protector to run away, I slapped myself awake. Then, splashing my face with cold water, I set about my daily routine mechanically.

I had expected our team to do D-ranks daily, but becoming a genin was the phase in our life where a ninja's greatest priority was training.

A genin cell received about two to three D-rank missions per week. Some were designed to be annoying, due to the fact that being able to hire ninjas was somewhat a status symbol.

While an old lady with a hunching spine may hire us to take care of her garden and do her housework (without using any techniques), a merchant may have us patrol his house while he was away and cater to the whims of his wife.

The main purpose of our missions, I assumed, was to build our social skills and camaraderie. Of course, I had to act cold as part of my character. I regularly left for training the moment after the meal Team Seven shared when we were dismissed by Kakashi-sensei for the day.

Anti-social I was not, but I did not speak without prompting. Although I had known Japanese before to certain extent, and my memories helped in a flash whenever confronted with kanji, much of what I wanted to say did not translate over well, never mind that civilians and some ninja in Konoha took sarcasm literally.

' _Just one of the many obstacles to my immersion with the normal masses_ , _'_ I mentally sighed as I finished my breakfast. Today was our day off, meaning that we have no missions and Kakashi would not show up to occupy our time from morning to afternoon.

The first time I sparred with the jounin, I was equally excited and afraid. I had gotten into my fair share of fights back in the world with no chakra, but nothing as intense. Add that to concealing my Sharingan, I had never felt so worn out by afternoon.

When Kakashi wasn't beating the stuffing out of the three of us, or half paying attention to our own spars and weaponry drills from behind his orange book, we were left on our own.

"Oi, dobe."

"Say something, bastard?"

"Bet neither of you can hit me with a shuriken."

I discovered that I liked to annoy Naruto. To break past his defenses without any malicious words and annoy someone who annoyed everyone else was one of the accomplishments I took pride in.

Then, I ran for dear life as he created a ridiculous amount of clones and used me as target practice, Sakura joining in wholeheartedly when I tipped the match heavily into my favor by substituting myself with Naruto clones.

Sakura's behavior was split between trying to be a _yamato nadeshiko_ , and an outspoken girl. She reached conclusions faster than a normal teenager but in order to appear feminine in my presence, that is, according to some skewed mentality, submissive, she often ignored her talents.

The only time she ever clocked Naruto was when he used his Sexy Jutsu, on which count I internally encouraged it. Although biased and quick to incense, she tried to be fair as she could.

That particular day ended with me covered in all sorts of cuts and treating my team to one bowl of ramen each. Somehow, Kakashi managed to show up for free food.

Today was a Saturday, and I had the whole day to myself to do anything; I needed to make most of it. After breakfast and cleaning up my apartment, I switched into a black variant of my outfit, and after a moment's thought, strapped on my weapons.

The morning sun had barely risen when I reached Naruto's apartment, and rang the bell. During a D-rank to deliver some insignificant package to some insignificant customer, Naruto had pointed out the complex he lived in. I simply searched for a flat with the sufficient ramen cups disposed in its trashcan.

Like the 'bastard' I was trying to portray, I rang the bell continuously until he yelled something incoherent and wrenched the door open.

"Who the f- oh." He paused, still dressed in his night clothes and cap. "Why are you here? It's our day off."

"Get dressed, we have things to do." I simply pushed the door open and walked past him, taking off my shoes in the appropriate place.

"I haven't even had breakfast yet!" Naruto yelled at me. I was about to retort when the wall between his and the next apartment was banged, followed by a hung over voice "Keep it down, brat! What _monstrosity_ are you cooking up now? The sun is barely up!"

Well, someone was awake enough to be clever when putting their foot in their mouth this early. Naruto had gone still at the emphasized word, looking at me fearfully, before chuckling sheepishly. When he didn't even retort, I knew his wind had been knocked out of his sail.

"Ah, sorry, my neighbor is-"

I slammed a fist back into the shared wall, and shot back in a monotone, "The sun was up almost half an hour ago." before facing Naruto's slackened expression. There was more bustling on the other side of the wall before the same disgruntled male yelled, "Shut the fuck up, damn _demonic_ brat!"

Naruto was quickly shifting his eyes between me and the wall. I folded my arms. "What prank did you pull on him?"

"Huh?" The Jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi stared and stared at me, still looking insecure.

"Idiot, lay off the pranks so people don't call you a demon," I tapped my forehead protector, as if to remind him of our current station as shinobi, "hurry up and eat your breakfast."

Pretending to be misdirected was the key to avoiding an awkward encounter. Naruto's relief was palpable as he took out a box of cereal and milk from the fridge, before filling it in a ramen bowl for a hefty breakfast.

Understandably, the Uzumaki did not survive on a diet of ramen. If he ever fell ill due to a deficiency of vitamins and minerals, his healing could not do much. His body just wouldn't be able synthesize what he needed, accelerated regeneration be damned.

I waited patiently for Naruto to finish, staying quiet because he had a habit of focusing on a person and ignoring everything else when in a conversation. Unless it was at Ichiraku Ramen, where I suspected he knew he was a hassle to the other customers and did not want to trouble the generous Teuchi-san.

"So, what did you want?" Naruto spoke as he strapped on his sandals, dressed in his orange suit. "Kakashi-sensei said to rest so our muscles have a chance to heal themselves and come back stronger, but I already feel healed, believe it!"

"Hn. I need a favor." I stood from his small round table, and put my hands in my pockets.

"A favor?" The blond asked, tilting his head and I feigned annoyance at my own words. "Why would you need a favor from _me_?"

"Because...you're suited to the task." I ground out, seeming more reluctant by the second.

"Heh, something that even the great Uchiha Sasuke can't do?" I gritted my teeth. ' _I'm trying to be nice, you annoying piece of work!_ '

As much as I liked to rile up Naruto, the exchange worked both ways.

"Acknowledging what you can and can't do is also a sign of greatness. Unlike assuming a genin fresh out of the academy can take something from a jounin."

Naruto twitched. "What do you want?"

I smirked for a fraction of a second before donning my expressionless mask. "How long can your clone hold a _henge_?"

* * *

Somewhere in our team training during last week, my right Sharingan had obtained two tomoe. The need for training it with more intensity became apparent, if just Naruto and Sakura could make me kick my bloodline up a notch.

Upon pondering, the solution had me rubbing my temples last night.

Contact lenses existed in Konoha. But I needed to keep it discreet. Such a purchase would be expensive enough without the suspicion surrounding why some with a Dojutsu would buy a pair.

That's where Naruto, with his skills at transformation and social observation came in, not to mention a shadow clone which would help him with an alibi.

Naruto understood my plan quickly, and although he seemed confused and suspicious, went through with it. His shadow clone snuck out the apartment before us after I handed him the money.

"So, wanna train?" Naruto asked, swaying back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"Hn." I said as he locked his door behind me. If he wanted to, I wouldn't mind, but my entire body was sore from yesterday. Kakashi had made us earn our day off, having us block swinging logs with our bodies to toughen them up.

I still think he found it humorous as we failed to dodge, and got battered with wood many times our bodyweight. The only consolation was one day our opponent would feel like they were punching metal, as we did when our blows landed on our sensei.

"I thought so too. Sakura-chan must be tired from yesterday. How 'bout we just hang out?" Naruto carried on as I observed some people on the street give him sideway glances, or ignore him completely.

"Hn." I said with a nod, to show my agreement.

Naruto smacked me hard on the shoulder, causing me to hiss as I flailed around a bit to keep my balance. I ached all over, and the task was made easier by the fact that I was in mid-step with my hands in my pocket.

We walked straight ahead for a while, until my teammate turned to me and asked, "How much longer till Sakura's house?"

I stopped, turning to him slowly. "I thought you knew her address."

"Hey, I'm an admirer, not a stalker!"

"I'm surprised you can distinguish between two."

"Of course I can! Jiji taught me everything I need to know about girls!"

I couldn't help myself at the image of Sandaime, in all his wisdom, trying to explain to Naruto how to act with the opposite gender. No wonder the blond was so indignant about perverts, the person he treasured above all taught him how to respect women.

"Did you just laugh?" Naruto turned on me, defensive.

I schooled myself instantly. "Not at you."

He scrunched his face, mulling over my words, before his eyes caught something in the distance. "Why is that guy walking on his hands? Looks kinda familiar too."

Could it be- I spun around in the direction he pointed and sure enough, Maito Gai was walking on his hands, gracing the streets of Konoha with his brand of craziness. Before I could say something Naruto had ran ahead to ask just why he was doing so.

And despite the fact that my body was wired to wake up before sunrise, my thoughts went ' _it's way too early for this shit._ '

"Greetings, young genin!" Gai flipped to his feet. I realized that he was covered in sweat, yet not a single drop had landed on us. "Why am I doing this, you inquire? I had promised myself I would do a thousand push-ups after dinner, otherwise I would walk around the whole village on my hands ten times! Most unfortunate it is that I feel asleep around the nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine! Would you care to join me?"

Naruto shook his head, speechless, before something clicked in his mind and he froze, jumping back and pointing his finger at the jounin. "Ah! You're the pervert who was beating his own crotch last week!"

My facade shattered and I gaped at Naruto. Gai's thick eyebrows disappeared into his hair while he nervously glanced around the streets to see if anyone had heard.

"Naruto! He's a jounin!" I whispered as stressfully I could.

"A jounin? That doesn't mean he's not a pervert!" Naruto shot back equally, voice echoing in the early morning hours.

The trouble was, Naruto was a terrible liar, and such an accusation was never his idea of a prank. One didn't need the Sharingan to know that.

"Ahem!" Gai cleared his throat seriously and both us stood ramrod straight. "It's seems your friend must have seen me during one of my unconventional, but necessary training."

"You were beating your crotch in the abandoned building next door. Repeatedly." Naruto again pointed his finger at the Green Beast of Konoha. I looked between my teammate and the jounin who I knew was weird, but certainly did not gratify his self in abandoned public place.

Please, deny it for the sake of sanity Gai-san.

"NO!" Gai protested, "That was not it!"

"Then what?" Naruto challenged.

"It was to build immunity against below the belt attacks in case they are used by opponents who are not youthful!"

' _I appreciate the plausible reasoning, but did you have to do it somewhere outside your home?!'_

Gai went on to say more things while I tried to calm myself. I had no qualms about messing about the so-called 'canon' with this meeting, for I am one of those who wish for the strength to walk a hard path than easier one, like Naruto. But this was ridiculous, what had I gotten myself into?

"-isn't' that right, young Uchiha-kun?" Gai finished his monologue, looking at me with hope while gesturing towards Naruto.

It was quite intentional, but one must never let the goods moments go to waste. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"WHAT?" Gai shouted. "What a calm and hip attitude you have there, young genin! Is your teacher possibly the even more chic Hatake Kakashi?!"

"Yeah! What about Kakashi-sensei? Do you guys read perverted novels together?" Naruto shot back as Gai gave the youth an exasperated smile and began to initiate his Eternal Rival spiel.

I massaged my temples slowly. ' _Still too goddamn early for this shite._ '

In the end, he failed to convince to Naruto he wasn't a pervert and quickly left on his hands lest the people now walking among the streets hear my orange-clad teammate loud rebuttals.

When he was gone, I suggested trying the library and Naruto readily agreed, seeing as Sakura was smart and therefore visited places with lots of books. In other words, same reasoning as me, only more honest.

"How do you even know that guy?" I asked when we began to walk again.

"Oh, the thick-browed, perverted weirdo who calls himself Kakashi-sensei's eternal rival?" Naruto ruffled the hair at his nape. "I couldn't sleep the night I passed the exam, because I was finally a ninja and on a team, so I decided to check the building next door where I hide all the random stuff I find," at my raised brow he paused rambling and explained, "for pranks, not that you'd care.

"Anyway, I sneak in and I hear these weird grunting noises in the complete dark, like _'uua! ugh! haa!_ ' but it was coming from the room I keep my stuff in and I fixed the bulb in that one, so I turn it on and-" the blond paused to spread his legs apart and raise a fist, "-he's standing like this, smashing his thing like mad! He stops seconds after the light comes on though, but I run away before he sees me or recovers from whatever he was doing."

Naruto's eyes takes on a vacant look. "I did not sleep that night."

"Hn." I awkwardly pat his shoulder as we reached the library. By sheer luck, Sakura was in, reading a novel at an empty rectangular table with a grey backpack leaning against her chair. There were four plain seats on each side with two at its widths.

Naruto and I sat down on either side of her.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, whatcha up to?" Naruto asked in the quietest voice I'd ever heard him use.

"Naruto ? Sasuke-kun? Why are you guys here?"

"Eh. We're bored 'cause Kakashi-sensei said no training today and came to hang. I pulled him along 'cause he didn't say no. What're you readin'? "

"Just a fiction novel," Sakura whispered, narrowed green eyes telling Naruto to whisper properly "sometimes they slip in the actual seals for jutsus, did you know?"

"Really?" Naruto asked more quietly, although both our attention was on her now. Sakura slightly blushed, before nodding.

"Like your shadow clone technique. It's in here, but I thought it was something the author just made up, especially because no other jutsu uses that seal."

"Hn. Look underneath the underneath, hmm?" I spoke at last, making eye contact with my female teammate. "Any other jutsus?"

"There is only one more, which is what I came for here. You know how Kakashi sensei is always disappearing on us with those leaves falling?"

"Yeah!" Naruto, excited as he was getting, whispered like he was in a helicopter. No one around us chastised him; the collective stares of every other person in vicinity, from few ninjas to the civilians, were enough to remind him of the proper conduct a being in a library merits.

"Right," Sakura huffed. "That's called the _Shunshin no Jutsu_ , a D-rank one that only requires one seal. I don't know which one because it varies in many places, but it's always one seal or none."

"If it requires just one seal why doesn't Kakashi-sensei teach us? And how do you know its D-Rank?" Naruto asked. Even I was curious, and added a "Hn." to his statement.

Now enjoying having a small audience, Sakura smiled lightly. "Any jutsu not taught in the academy is above E-Rank, and C-ranks are generally more offensive or defensive than an in-between like D-ranks are, which often involve augmentation- that means supplement or add something extra to, Naruto- via taijutsu or bukijutsu. Shunshin falls into that category, as it can be used for evasion or charging or simply getting to places like our sensei does."

I would like to let my jaw hang open like Naruto, but that would be unbecoming of an Uchiha. I can now see why Sasuke married this girl. She's sort of super special awesome.

"Wow Sakura-chan," Naruto was more vocal in his praise, "That was amazing."

"Hn." One corner of my mouth turns upward and the look in my eye all but says _I'm impressed_.

"It's n-nothing." The girl stares into her lap, hair failing to cover her blush.

"Nothing ordinary." I mutter and then suddenly find the chair opposite to me very fascinating. The square frame, the horizontally nailed planks, the plain design…

"Did he just give you a compliment?" I glared at Naruto, who replied with a shit-eating grin. Sakura nudged him to stop and he dropped it.

"If it's D-rank, I'm gonna ask Kakashi-sensei to teach it to me tomorrow." The blond switched topics, mirth still evident in his blue eyes. I doubted that, considering he treated us the same as teenager, expecting us to act like adults while treating us like kids, not mention he'd need substantial proof our loyalty to the village to learn its' arts.

According to Sasuke's memories, all scrolls taken from the Uchiha Compound post-massacre were in the village archive, where techniques from many other clans were also located. The Uchiha scrolls weren't locked with any special or specific Fuinjutsu since that was not the strength of my clan, but they'd require a Sharingan to read-

' _Oh, Danzo, you son of a biscuit!_ '

Sakura sighed. "He won't Naruto. Jounin-sensei often do not teach genin jutsus before they've had them for a year at least, due how inexperienced they are." Naruto frowned, so she elaborated, "A genin using Shunshin can collide into face first into something, receive a serious injury or even death, if something happens like them smashing their face and driving their nose into their brain."

Horror slowly dawned on his face, and Team Seven's most intellectual genin twisted the knife further. "And in using a Shunshin, even jounin are hard-pressed to stop their students."

Naruto nodded silently, completely deflated. Sakura giggled, before suggesting that we also get something to read.

"But my kanji is really bad. Like really, really bad, Sakura-chan."

"Then pick up a dictionary and start learning," the pink-haired girl put her hand on her hips. "There's a spare notebook in my bag you can use. Sheesh, what did you even learn at the academy? How much do you know?"

I walked around to search for a dictionary my teammate could use, and picked a book title ' _The Second Ninja War_ ' off the history shelf. Wordlessly, I hand it to the blond who raises his eye at my other book.

We sat in silence while I flipped through something that has always intrigued me; Hatake Sakumo's infamous mission that besmirched his entire reputation.

And what a reputation it was. During the Second War, before the Sannin were knighted, Konoha's fame was carried by Sarutobi Hiruzen and Hatake Sakumo. Before the Yellow Flash came onto the field, enemies feared having to face Konoha's White Fang in battle.

The way history was written was flavored with bias, but the thought of being from the same village as this man did ignite patriotic pride within me. He was the third Hokage's first pick in times of chaos, and before his last mission none of his assignments had been an outright failure.

Under a subheading title ' _Hatake's Fall from Grace_ ' was the following paragraph:

 _The fact that an S-Rank mission assigned to a shinobi came to light in public is of shame itself, where not only was Captain Hatake found negligent of abandoning his objectives, breaking almost every line written on the Shinobi Rules of Conduct, it compromised Konoha's dignity. Uncensored reports show that it was an assassination on a classified target who took hostage one of the men under Hatake's command. Instead of putting the needs of the many before the needs of the few, Captain Hatake aborted the mission and returned with his men alive, but our hard-earned reputation in tatters._

Oh. The reputation as a bleeding heart we've taking advantage for who knows how long on the surface? Our PR department sure can run some splendid damage control. And to choose between a life in front of you and the ones you cannot see, it's damned if you do and damned if you don't.

Maybe the opponent was strong enough to kill or injure his team even if Hatake did defeat him, this was a time where medic nin were rare, so chances of them living if any did survive were perhaps among the lowest in history.

Maybe the mission was meant to sacrifice them anyway, or could have been beyond Sakumo's caliber, he was human after all! Oh wait, that's not allowed when you become a shinobi-

"Sasuke-kun? The book might get damaged." Sakura's soft voice came from next to me and I blinked, slowly breathing in and out. Without me knowing, I had the book in an iron grip, thumbnails biting into the aged pages.

"Sorry." I close it without reading further. Sakumo was the opposite of Itachi, someone who put his comrades before the village. Both tried to be heroes, and both would be scorned no matter what the truth.

"Hey, it's way past twelve! Let's go get lunch!" Naruto excited whisper broke my tense thoughts, I stood up slowly.

' _No matter what anyone thinks, I think you're a hero, Sakumo-san._ ' I thought as I placed the book back into the shelf.

Sakura checked out another small book which she assured the librarian lady she would finish by tonight and hand it in tomorrow, and we headed off towards Ichiraku Ramen.

* * *

"See you tomorrow Naruto, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura chirped as she skipped towards her own home. We boys had simply agreed, through telepathic rival eye contact, to walk Sakura to her house first to in order to know her address, after which we headed towards Naruto's apartment.

"Hey, there is it is!" The blond exclaimed, tossing off his shoes to rush to a brown bag on his dining table. "Here you go."

I opened it, before looking at the receipt, frowning. "This costs more money than I gave you."

"Yeah, my clone came back to get some from my secret savings and then took a second trip to buy it, whatever you need them for."

Inside the bag was a 500ml bottle of solution along with two small cases that held black cosmetic lenses; the answer to using my Sharingan in public but keeping it hidden.

For all we get on each other's nerves and call each other names, Naruto really went out of his way for me.

"Thank you."

"Hehehe...no problem!"

We stood there awkwardly, before I cleared my throat. "Do you want to know what I need them for?"

"You don't have to force yourself to tell someone like me." He held up his hands, looking nervous. His choice of words revealed his anxiety. I couldn't tell if he was genuinely that kind, or sucking up to me, afraid that I'd start acting the way I did in academy.

I knew that feeling, of wasting whatever money you have on pricks who let you walk around with them but don't include you at all, leaving you torn between hoping that one day you'll stop being lonely among people or staying away and acknowledge you are certainly lonely.

"You went out of your way for me. I trust you can keep a secret?" I channel chakra to my eyes, tinting my vision red.

"Whoa! What's wrong with your eyes?" Naruto yelled, pointing at me.

"Keep it down dobe!" I nearly stomp my foot at his actions, before explaining to him what a Bloodline Limit is, and giving examples.

"Huh. That explains why some peoples' eyes are so weird. But why do you want to keep yours hidden?"

"Hmm, just because. Keeping your abilities hidden is also a skill."

"But will you tell Sakura?" Naruto asks, understanding she would feel left out. He knew how that felt.

"Tomorrow. But let's keep it a surprise for sensei."

"Alright! I'll keep this secret forever and won't let you down, believe it!"

I do, my friend.


	4. Chapter 4

Gosh, this story has exceeded alerts of all my others in so little time. This chapter is for the reviewers who want moar Slice of Life, because life is not all exciting bits. Oh and will perhaps also answer Warlord of Chaos's question on where SI!Sasuke's power level stands.

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 **Chapter 4: In which the Genius works most ordinarily.**

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* * *

" _The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."_ Nikolas Tesla.

* * *

"Morning." I greeted, resisting the urge to massage my sore temples as I reached the mission office. Ever since Naruto got me contact lenses, I've been keeping my Sharingan on so much that the cost at which it uses chakra has is now not noticeable, but the muscles around my eyes feel fatigued.

When we told Sakura about my awakened bloodline, she was joyful and a bit confused but found that keeping things secret added more to my mysterious charm. A charm so mysterious even I knew nothing about it.

"Morning, Sasuke-kun." The girl waved, standing next to the door, waiting. Naruto was furiously pacing along the corridor, still not used to Kakashi showing up late. Not giving up hope that one day our teacher would be on time had its consequences.

I leaned against a wall at an appropriate distance from Sakura and pulled out a juicy apple from my pouch as per routine, to no one's surprise. Team Seven had also learned that I rarely offered on my own unless they asked, or looked long enough causing me to hold one out (I dared not toss one to them, for fear of them not catching it).

"He's late! Why is he always late?"

"Naruto, the day Kakashi-sensei arrives on time is the day you become Hokage." Sakura muttered, bouncing her heel against the wall. I hid my frown behind another bite of apple. Perhaps she meant nothing by it; perhaps she found Naruto's efforts inadequate.

It would be easy to draw that conclusion, considering I had once kept count and taken out seventy four of his shadow clones before he landed a punch on me in a spar, or that Sakura's aim and use of the Academy techniques bar Transformation was better than his.

The only apparent thing Naruto had going for him was his vast chakra reserves and trapping skills, alongside stamina.

"Ha! So that's why he wastes so much time being late! If I become the Hokage, I can order him to be on time!"

The double door to the office opened and a black-haired chunin poked her head out, naturally fierce eyes fixing on Naruto for a moment to stop his pacing before turning to us, "Hokage-sama has called for you to come inside."

"Jiji? Sure, let's go." Naruto gave the kunoichi a respectful distance as he passed and we followed, me casually throwing the apple core into a dustbin situated in the corner of the room successfully without a glance.

"Naruto," The Hokage intoned as we stood in front him. Iruka was absent at the moment and people I didn't know flanked the man in the spiffy red hat, doing paperwork. "Kakashi is on a mission, but I've found just the cho- task for Team Seven."

"You were gonna say chore!" Naruto protested.

"No." The Hokage's upper lip twitched fondly as he gazed back.

"Nu-uh! You totally were gonna."

"What mission do you have for us, Hokage-sama?" Sakura cut in, looking at Naruto from the corner of her eye, all but saying _Zip it._

"Ah yes, no scroll for you this time," Sarutobi said. "Team Eight has already been assigned, you are to go assist them. This is a time-sensitive matter on multiple accounts, so I suggest you make haste towards Niwatori-san's farm, located in district twelve."

We nodded, while Naruto punched the air. "Finally a real mission! Later then, J

We jumped out of the buildings and took the roof, immediately heading towards our direction.

* * *

"Hey, it's Naruto and his team." Kiba announced as we landed into view, resting with his team on the triple-storied farmhouse's porch.

"Hey you guys!" Naruto cheered. "So, what's the situation?"

"Aren't you eager?" Kurenai-sensei spoke from behind us and we jumped, instantly reaching for weapons before we recognized her. "Good instincts. So here's your mission..."

By the time she finished, I was genuinely brooding, Sakura had her shoulders drooping and Kiba was laughing at Naruto's outrage.

Niwatori-san was going to hand over a hundred or so chickens to his friend who was opening up a new restaurant at around ten this morning, but when he sent his son to check them at dawn, the moron had left the coop unlocked and all of them had two hours to escape before anyone noticed.

Niwatori-san and his wife were too old to search for long or far, their son too young to send him into the trees that lined the farm (Konoha has forests both outside and inside its walls).

The friend would come to collect the stock at somewhere around nine, and it was somewhere around eight thirty now. Approximately thirty minutes left and around forty or so chickens to capture. And unlike white poultry bred things, these were brown-feathered little creatures, which were lost in a forest that blocked out much of the sun and gave them camouflage.

"Not that my team can't handle it, but Kakashi wanted his team to have a tracking mission besides Tora."

All of us, even Team Eight, twitched at the name of that damn cat.

"Oh, and you can't use any of the cages." Kurenai finished, eyes sliding towards the small street crates meant to transport birds.

"Great, we have to carry them all back by hand." Sakura gave a resigned sigh, all too used to Kakashi-sensei and his extra instructions.

"You'd better get started, less than half an hour to go." The beautiful jounin smiled. "Also, no shadow clones for Naruto."

"G-good luck y-you guys." Hinata encouraged meekly. I looked to her to show that I heard, nodding before we dispersed, making a beeline for the trees.

"Hey Sasuke," Naruto began as landed on branches inside the shadows of trees. I turned to him with my arms folded, a gesture meant to warn him to be discreet about the Sharingan, also informing him that I knew his question before he voiced it.

"What do we do?" He amended quickly. Kurenai had to be around somewhere, if she had to keep a watch on Naruto not using his clones.

"I've got wire to tie them together, so we don't have to continuously run back and forth between the farm and here," I took out my entire spool, enough to set up a web in the trees using kunais and began to measure it for equal distribution. "Sakura, any plans?"

The pink-haired girl shook her head. "No, we'd better split up."

"I'll take the centre, you take the left, and Naruto takes right. You have your flares for emergencies, right?" They nodded, then we scattered towards the ground. Sharingan completely hidden behind my black lenses, I combed the forest floor.

A blue mist began diffusing into the corners of my field of view, reducing with it the sounds of the morning forest around me, until it was quiet. Too quiet.

' _Kai.'_ I disrupted the flow of my chakra and the sound of something scurrying among the soil and roots came from the right. ' _An auditory genjutsu!_ ''

I bolted towards it and was rewarded with a brown hen, which I quick to subdue. Laying it on its side, I placed a kunai in its line of view and slashed away from it, making it go limp. And my teachers thought me watching random videos on YouTube would never help me in anyway.

Quickly I tied it up and rushed to the right side of the forest, using chakra to propel myself. If Kurenai was going to mess with us, then Naruto had no chance as he was, and I had no idea about Sakura's prowess.

The Sharingan let me pick out two more targets along the way before I ran into my teammate. As I had feared, he had his hands wrapped around rock, pinning to the floor.

"I've got you now-"

I could have pulsed my chakra through him, but the sight made me want to punch. So I conked him on the head, "Wake up, _usuratonkachi_!"

"Ouch, what was that for you bast- hey, this ain't a chicken!"

"Genjutsu."

"Oh." Naruto smiled sheepishly, ruffling his hair. "I think she got mad I tried to make a shadow clone. It got hit with a shuriken damn fast."

I frowned. "When?"

"Only a minute ago."

Which meant she had raced past me. Wow.

Whether she had stayed unnoticed while I rushed here with my Sharingan vigilant, or had taken a longer path to not be detected by me, a jounin's stealth or speed was no joke.

Holy Madara, I had a long way to go.

* * *

Kurenai watched as Team Seven, finally formed after years when the number was assigned to the legendary Hatake Kakashi.

"Sensei, is this not too harsh? Why, you ask?" Shino looked towards his teacher. "Because tired as we are, we are a tracking squad, while Team Seven is not. To say nothing of the extra stipulations attached to them."

Kurenai gave a half-smile towards the little deep-thinker on her team.

"Relax, Shino. I won't let a failed D-Rank be on our record."

" _Relax_?" Kiba parroted. "Man, I'm surprised they even accepted, like it was normal. How crazy _is_ this Kakashi guy?"

"Don't worry; I'll go check on them." Kurenai said and vanished in a swirl of leaves.

"...Please tell she isn't going to do what I think she is." Kiba asked his teammates. When they said nothing, he smirked. "Those poor bastards won't know what hit them."

Kurenai reached Team Seven easily, staying hidden and eavesdropping on their conversation.

As expected, the Uchiha genius seemed to take leadership, and quickly devised a method, an inconvenient, but time-efficient one before they split up.

' _Now then._ ' She thought as she began with Sasuke, weaving her hands for an auditory deprivation genjutsu over him. The lad was continuously scanning his surroundings, and expected to develop his bloodline someday. Perhaps he would remember a lesson about not all genjutsu being focused on sight.

Barely had her trap been set when the raven-haired genin stopped walking, and instantly dispelled it. And he didn't even use his Sharingan.

What followed was even stranger, as the genin captured a chicken and immediately made it go limp, by sketching a simple line in front of the animal's eye with his kunai and then secured its claws together, grabbing it by its back and took off to the right.

Snapping out of her surprise, Kurenai followed as Sasuke sprinted off into the direction of his blond teammate, the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Grinning slightly, the genjutsu specialist easily overtook the genin and reached first.

Taking out a shadow clone coincidentally as soon as he made it, she ensnared the intellectually weakest link on the team easily, convincing his brain that a rock near him was a chicken.

Sasuke reached sooner than she would have liked, but he wasn't the Rookie of the Year for nothing. Not wasting any time, he punched his teammate on the head before they both rushed towards their third teammate. The two boys then began to run towards their last teammate to change their plan.

Kurenai would never admit she was having fun screwing- err, teaching Kakashi's students how to run when their enemy was a genjutsu user, continuously changing the scenery, messing with their sense of balance and sanity in general by mismatching the movement of their lips with the words they spoke.

At least she was subtly guiding them towards the Niwatori-san's chickens to save their time and trouble.

* * *

I was only one step away from using the Fireball Jutsu in a forest with plenty of combustible twigs and leaves.

Naruto had taken to continuously hitting himself to get rid of the continuous assault on us (he couldn't pulse his chakra yet), and I was getting a headache from trying to located where the jounin, but the moment I caught sight of her chakra she shifted.

"Naruto, screw the rules. Get to Sakura, use as many shadow clones as you can."

"No way! That crazy lady wins if I use my-" he slapped his face "shadow clones! I'm not gonna give up!"

It might be endearing to a viewer of the anime how Naruto never gave up, but at times like these, I wish had a moment to bash my head against a tree trunk.

On the way we had encountered ten more chickens, and after hypnotising them to sleep, we lugged them on our back, Naruto taking seven while I took six, even if Kurenai was just as batty as Kakashi. Well, all in a day's D-rank.

' _I hope Asuma's cigarettes give him erectile dysfunction._ '

When we reached Sakura, to her brief surprise, we found her tying a seventh chicken to a fallen branch with a much smaller length of the total ninja wire I had given her.

She gave us a look at how we were carrying our targets, before sighing. Naruto relayed everything that had happened and the pink haired girl groaned.

"And things were going so peacefully for me, but then you had to show up." She grumbled, before taking out a watch, with its straps removed to look at the time. "Only ten minutes to go, and we have twenty of the chickens."

"How did you get so many?" Naruto questioned, looking between my batch, asleep and now stirring, and Sakura's, all of them squawking noisily.

"Throw some rocks randomly and they start running around or making noise. This won't work because now Kurenai-san is here and won't let it be that easy." The pink-haired girl leaned against a tree, wiping some sweat off her brow.

"Hn." Unlike what I had initially thought, Naruto's sense of smell and hearing was average. Sakura's stamina wouldn't keep up with us if we were to keep running.

And flightless birds now tied to long branches like living piñatas (wasn't that a morbid thought), the two turned to me for guidance.

"Let's think of something while we drop these off first." I said, taking out a kunai and holding one of the chickens still with my other hand.

"Teme, what are you doing?" Naruto watched as the bird under my grip went limp. "Did it just die?!"

"Shut up, dobe." I grumbled, motioning them to hurry. "It's asleep and won't struggle."

"Where did you learn this Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked as she copied me. Seeing his crush doing what I was, Naruto also sat down to it. I said nothing and we went off and dropped the birds to Team Eight, where Kurenai was sitting next to Hinata like she had never left.

Judging from their faces, they knew what was going on, but I was satisfied at the fact that we had captured more chickens than expected when we dropped them.

"Only eight minutes left." Kurenai smiled gently as she stood up. "Nineteen more to go, well done."

"Where are you going?" Naruto scrunched his fact at her.

"To gather the rest of them." She answered innocently, raising the orange-clad boy's hackles.

"What? No way! We don't need your pity, believe it!" Not to mention she'd do no such thing anyways.

"Uh, Naruto?" Sakura cracked knuckles even as she smiled.

"Hn," I dismissed her as well, for once agreeing with Naruto. Looking at Kurenai, I stood as straight as I could and used my most condescending tone, "Don't underestimate us. Just rest, you'd need more than us anyway."

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura whined, or maybe scolded at my attitude.

"Good." Kurenai commented. "My team is rested, and the mission is about the client, so take whatever help you can get. And that's not a suggestion."

Red eyes rested on at the last comment, causing me to grumble internally. Sometimes, you forget jounin are not high school teachers you can sass to.

"Sakura, pair up with Inuzuka and take the right side of the forest," I cut into the chatter between Kurenai and her students, who were under the impression the jounin would help personally to end the mission what with barely five minutes to go. "Naruto, go with Hyuga. Aburame, come with me."

"Hey, who made you leader?" Kiba leaned close to me, trying to assert dominance.

"I would have suggested the same." Shino cut in, looking at Kiba sharply. "Unless, you have more objections to waste time?"

"Fine." The tattoo-faced boy had no choice when met with the approval of the strategist on his team. We scattered once more, Team Seven taking hold of the cages for capturing chickens.

The reason for divisions was simple. I didn't want Sakura around Shino for fear of how she would act around him and I also wanted him around me to see how well my Sharingan picked up on his _Kikaichu_ beetles.

Sakura would do well to keep up with Kiba, her (secret) competitive streak and his personality a perfect recipe for it.

And the last pairing, Naruto and Hinata, was simply for fun.

* * *

"Thank you, thank you very much! You really helped me keep my word." The old man with a white moustache, tanned down to his neck and arms bowed his head, leaning on a cane.

"It was no problem," Kurenai spoke like there were no sweaty and dishevelled genin standing her. "We have to go report back to the mission office now."

"Oh, of course, of course. Thank you again and here's your scroll." Niwatori handed her the mission scroll after scribbling his signature on it.

"Well, boys and girls, I'll go ahead and deliver this to Hokage-sama. You're dismissed for the day." Kurenai said disappeared in a swirl of leaves. I should really learn the body flicker.

We walked for a while, before Naruto sided up to me, trying to be secretive but looking all the more suspicious. "Hey Sasuke, is it just me or is Hinata weird?"

I looked into the sky, shielding my eyes from the sun.

I had to have expected it, I _did_ expect it, and yet when faced with it, I couldn't help but think,

' _Can't I go a single day without wanting to punch him in the face?_ '

"You're also weird, but we're friends. Why not make friends with her too?" I whispered back, aware of four other eavesdroppers.

"But she's so quiet. She didn't say one word and didn't even look at me."

"Like me at the academy?"

"Yeah, but like a million times less of a jerk." I glared at him, masking the tilt of my head with a sigh to see if Shino had us bugged with my Sharingan (it didn't provide magnification, but did improve resolution).

Finding ourselves clear as best I as I could, I went in for the truth. So many messes are born in real life due to miscommunication, countless opportunities missed because of ignorance, and I was having none of that.

"Does she seem nervous, avoid eye contact or blush?"

"Yeah!" Naruto exclaimed, causing the other four to jump and me wishing I could punch him for talking loudly into a person's ear.

The blond looked around, embarrassed, and then continued at a much lower volume, "So you _do_ know what is it, ne?"

"When a girl is like that around a boy," I deadpanned, "it means she likes him."

"What?!" Naruto jumped, attracting even more curious look from our fellow genin. He openly looked at Hinata, before looking at me, before looking back at Hinata, who had now begun to look away and poking her fingers.

His mouth open in shock and standing listless was how I left Naruto, patting my teammate's shoulder and disappeared off to train.

* * *

It had been three weeks since I had come into this world, and finally I was able to walk on water, even when the surface was slightly disrupted. In order to stand, I had been unable to use the tenketsu only approach as with solid surfaces.

What I could do was focus on release chakra from beneath the balls of my feet and heels. But today was a new experiment.

I hadn't used any jutsus when tree walking because all I knew were fire natured ones. Now, it was time to test if I could stay on the surface while water-walking.

' _Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!'_ Like a damn breaking forth, the chakra within me swelled and I exhaled like a dragon, the fireball burning orange, and my feet held. Excited, I added another focused burst of chakra, which tinged the edges of my jutsu red.

During my earlier attempts, I had hit upon another way to better execute the Fireball Jutsu.

When one used their chakra, the energy already available reached the site of the jutsu first, such as, in the Fireball Jutsu, where the locus of the technique was the mouth, chakra transferred from the upper body first, rising from the chest, shoulders, arms to the mouth.

 _Then_ the chakra you had moulded came into play, going straight from the belly, the chakra central, to the justu location. The more coils your chakra had to pass through, the more of its original power were lost as it travelled.

And due to how sensitive I was to the movement of my own chakra, I exploited this admittedly untested theory of mine. When I focused on drawing chakra simply from my navel to my mouth, the fireball was smaller than my prior attempts, not having enough chakra with me focusing on fewer pathways and mentally blocking others, but it was _hotter._

Steadily, I cut off the technique and stood still. I had at last managed to regain the size of the Fireball Jutsu to its maximum, but it was better than ever before and my breathing was even.

Breaking all decorum, I let out a whoop, before cranking my neck and readying myself once more.

"I'm just getting started!"


	5. Chapter 5

Wah habibi, there is about a 250% increase in the number of follows of this story since the last chapter. This one has no canon stuff so took a while to write, I still have a cold and a leaky faucet of a nose. Without furhter ado, read on! And if anyone has any guess about why there are titles and quotes, don't go too deep into the stories but they have their connections to the story ;D

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 **Chapter 5: In which if you're strong, you'll survive and you'll keep your dreams alive.**

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* * *

 _"Oh God, they have not and will not understand me. Give them a different heart, if you will not give me a different tongue."_ Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.

* * *

Normal days had a pattern of waking up, breakfast, going to train with Kakashi, lunch with teammates, self-training to exhaust myself enough for no dreams, taking a relaxing bath, buying dinner and tomorrow's breakfast, sharpen my weapons and go to sleep.

Many a time I had no will to get up, weary from yesterday, and the day before, and before, ad infinitum. But training gave me direction, and kept me sheltered from a world which tried my patience each day when I pondered too long over it.

Nothing new, but seeking the light each time I delved into the darkness that was hidden in this world took more effort.

Today was not a normal day, with Naruto acting like a petulant child in the Mission Office.

Turns out, the Wave mission had been taken by another team, and Kakashi was sent as back-up to them, without us. An individual jounin charged more than one with a genin cell, which was good for us, and not so good for our customers. But we didn't want the best solution, instead of the most expensive one.

I had read the mission guide and seen how missions were administrated. D-Ranks were strictly within the village, and allowed the clients a little space for additional comments on the mission scrolls they had to sign.

They were the only ones which strictly did not require one's nationality to belong the Land of Fire. D-Ranks helped build a friendly rapport with the villagers and also allowed insight into the perception of a shinobi from a villager's point of view.

C-Ranks were mainly designed to be escort or fast-delivery missions, sometimes internal but mostly external. And all external missions required upfront payment amounting to half the overall money, except for A-Ranks. Those took full, since the fatality, and hence failure rate, was higher.

Upfront payment that a certain bridge-builder did not have and any sensible person will tell you never accept a loan or present an IOU to a ninja village. Not to mention hire a cell of Jounin for an A-Rank (The Hokage did risk losing even one of those by curtailing many solo assignments).

Konoha had no banks, and many clans, like the Konoha Treasury, were secured by decades old Fuinjutsu, a gift for allying ourselves with Uzushio. The small safe under my bed was also a rare artefact, designed to transfer all its contents to within the village's treasury if it were to be forcibly opened or the wrong combination used.

Back to the topic, the end result was that the bridge was built, but had tax booths on both sides of it, operated by civilians but watched over by ninjas. Soon even they would leave, but the money would still flow steadily from that venture.

So other than the discounts Konoha had wrangled on imports from Wave, we also had a completely separate source of income, considering how much traffic was beginning to flow along the bridge.

Of course, I was sure some other shady shite was also up as the Hokage tried to give Naruto a lesson about social studies, considering this also gave us the leverage to deploy our own shinobi into the Land of Waves, for protection of the bridge among other things, if required.

' _Ah, the beauties of third world politics._ '

"But Jiji! I want a C-rank! We had to catch chickens! How did they even get lost in a forest? I swear it's like someone took them and hid them in the..." Naruto accused with confidence, trailing off to sudden enlightenment.

Were jounin above sabotaging missions of their genin? I had left before any proper conversation had begun between us and Team Eight to know. Playing an Uchiha was not conducive to socializing among peers, even if it gave me more time to train.

The Hokage coughed, but the Sharingan caught twitches of his facial muscles and the movement of his larynx seemed to be forced, thus he was likely hiding a laugh. _Sneaky old codger._

"Naruto," Kakashi flicked a page, other hand in his pocket. "I think you've gone far enough."

"But-"

Kakashi eye-smiled, an action automatically associated with a Tora mission, which had us on edge. He wouldn't, would he?

"I _suppose_ I do have a C-Rank for you. Or rather, will, if you report tomorrow." The Hokage said at last, when our nerves were strained enough, and I sighed along with Sakura. Naruto punched the air.

"Finally! I knew it was time! What's it about?"

"An escort mission." The Hokage shuffled around his desk, before finding a scroll from the stack across him.

"Hehehe, if we're lucky, it will turn into an A-Rank like that one in wave, believe it!" Ah, here was the daily moment where I felt like decking him in the face.

' _Oh my sweet summer child._ ' I watched as Kakashi actually punched the blond idiot's cranium, eyes never leaving Icha Icha.

From memories of ninja academy I know that although they've had lectures on killing and death, I doubt these folks have fathomed events like the Holocaust or the one-sided massacres of innocents in the Middle East, like Palestine or Syria, of the atrocities at Nanking.

I shook my head to snap out of my thoughts. As mentioned, the more I delve into it, the harder it is resurface. Maybe something to do with taking the place of a character whose sole moral compass was not to do things his older brother did and rid the world of him for he was Evil.

"Lucky?" The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "You find your and the lives of your team being thrown into danger lucky?"

"Ehehehe...no?" Naruto ruffled his hair, looking sheepish while Kakashi actually sighed.

"You may go now. Come back tomorrow," The Hokage made a shooing motion and unfurled another scroll on his desk.

"By your leave, Hokage-sama." Kakashi turned around and began to walk, us following him.

"So, what do we do today Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto swung his arm, quite chipper about the C-Rank tomorrow.

"Hm? I was thinking about starting you guys on tree walking." I shut off listening when Naruto began to object and only began to pay attention to how Kakashi walked up a tree.

Focusing my Sharingan, I observed that former ANBU Captain employed the same technique as me, chakra flaring out from certain points beneath the soles of his feet to attach himself to the bark.

"And now my cute little genin, your turn!" Kakashi smiled from where he stood upside down, still reading his book.

Biting down a smirk, I walked up the same path as him, hands in my pockets before standing upside down next to him.

"Yo." I held up a hand in his mimicry, and Kakashi simply nodded, reaching out to mess/pat my hair. I hmph'ed and turned away, but made no effort to swat his hand as per prior occasions. It was about time for my 'icy exterior' to thaw a bit.

"Good Sasuke. It seems you already know this exercise."

The sound of Naruto's determined yell filled Training Ground 3 as he rushed up a tree, and then began to slip when he was perpendicular to the ground.

Huh.

Wait a minute.

Slip?

Ignoring Sakura's success, I focused on Naruto again as he ran up, Sharingan focusing on his feet. Chakra leaked out, barely penetrating the bark.

' _He didn't use excessive chakra; he barely transferred enough to attach himself!_ '

I had not been expecting this. Remembering back the Wave Arc, I suddenly recalled that it had been Sasuke (me?) who had splintered the surface of a tree while Naruto had slid right off. Jinchuuriki-status be damned, what was in front of me was clearly not a case of my team mate pouring more chakra than necessary in his techniques, but the opposite.

Jumping off and landing nimbly, I made my way over the blond, hands in pockets, wondering how I could have been so stupid to not have observed him before.

"What do you want, _genius_ bastard?"

 _I didn't even do anything, besides telling you a girl has a crush on you. One of these days, my patience_ will _fail._

"Channel _more_ chakra to your feet, loser."

Blues eyes met black, obscured red behind them. Something in his head clicked.

"Ooh. Sorry." Dusting himself off, Naruto made a ram seal and stood still, transferring all the chakra he could to his feet before running up. He stuck for two steps, before coming back down. Looking at me he beamed, but still did not verbally thank me as he normally did to people.

"Hn." My work done, I turned back to Kakashi, who was watching us carefully. Leaving Sakura to walk up and down to work on her stamina, the elite jounin stood behind me before I even noticed.

"You're nothing like your academy profile." Another fall. Yet another attempt by Naruto.

I waited for the wind to caress my hair before I responded. "He's not an idiot. Mostly."

"Hm? And what about Sakura? Shouldn't you be working on your stamina with her if you've got it?"

What I wanted was to meditate, because I had an idea for a new theory. But what Sasuke would want to do was more training. And at this point in time I needed to do what Sasuke wanted, because if one day he came back I didn't want him to end up in the loony bin.

"Now now, don't think so hard. Have you tried water-walking?"

"Hn."

Kakashi looked at me, eye-smile slowly turning into a glare. Right, jounin have no time for Uchiha apathy.

"...Yes."

"Huh. Know any elemental ninjutsu?"

"Uchiha ones."

"Hmm. Well, I'll test your chakra nature one of these days. Keep your teammates company while I'm gone. Bye!"

Stupid jounin and their body flicker!

Well, time to see if I can climb a tree on one leg.

* * *

"And these are the people guarding me?" Sumeragi Eri spoke neutrally, but a small fan hid her expression.

Glowing skin, a gold pin in her hair dark as the night, and green robes a shade lighter than trees which hid our village. Eyelids and lips painted with a cherry pink colour. And every stiff inch a haughty princess.

"My apologies, Sumeragi-sama," A servant looking just as beaten as his master was arrogant. "But the legendary Copy Ninja was not available otherwise."

"And don't forget me!" Naruto piped up.

"You?" Sumeragi arched an elegant brow.

"Future Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto! Believe it!"

"Of course." Almost everyone could see that she did not, even as she hid her hands in her sleeves.

"Really? Thanks! You ain't half-bad yourself. Look really snobby though." Naruto smiled.

I had to bite my tongue to stifle the giggle that wanted to escape. _Never had anyone be less than polite with you, Sumeragi-sama?_

Half an hour of dalliances later, I found myself sitting atop our client's carriage, while Kakashi brought up the rear and Naruto and Sakura flanked the horses.

The mission had begun in a town seven miles northeast of Konoha, a place smaller than the leaf village called Sakami, known by its neighbours for its fishing streams.

Quaint wood and clay buildings aside, there was plenty of modern architecture as well. But I couldn't help but feel a single building in New York could house the entire residents of one of these settlements.

Residents who weren't afraid of us...quite. Shinobi did not count civilians as someone who understood them, and the exchange went both ways. We were simply different from each other. Unless someone really forced themselves to think hard, they accepted the ways of the world as they were without changing perspective.

Humans leaping off trees, walking around with weapons, capable of making someone disappear without a trace, were common facts. Whether you obsessed over it, or calmly went on with your life while believing you had no reason to fear the shadows that lived among you, was your call.

On the other hand, talking about say, Zebras, got you _looks_. Like black and white striped creatures that were dime a dozen in zoos were some myth I had heard of or concocted from an overactive imagination, that one time I had tried to joke about how some things in the world were really black and white during philosophical genin-only conversations.

So really, perspective.

Like the chance of a lethal bandit encounter on this mission with armed children. Except we weren't civilians, and so not quite _children_ , and every ninja began their career as a child or early teen. Now, matching the age at which we began our jobs to the drinking age for everyone, us included, _that_ was abnormal.

I'd bet my favourite shirt Kakashi thought it was normal for children under ten to train, that the Hokage had not considered raising the graduation age until his greying years showed him what children were like off a battlefield, that ninja or not, a child was a _child_.

That you'd think it was somehow wrong for someone born with chakra to wait more than a decade and a half to be considered an army asset, was a gift of intelligence belonging to very few. And of all the history I'd read, made me ponder this;

A cycle of hatred was too simple a spiritual basis for the wars that embroiled this world. And as long as scribes wrote to please their lords and leaders, I had little chance of finding someone who penned by from the shoes of the other, of the enemy.

And why think so deeply, and search so hungrily?

Life is an experiment, but all great experiments had a purpose. Plants need water, animals need food, fire needs fuel, and human beings need purpose. Only then do we truly nurture, live and burn.

"Ne, when do you think something exciting will happen?" Naruto's voice crashed against my ears, popping my personal reverie.

"Will you keep it down?" Greens eyes glared into blue, even as Sakura's fists shook. Poor girl must have been jittery enough with our first mission, to say nothing of the quiet day aside from Naruto's voice.

Hoofs clopped along the dusty road cleared along the summer beaten prairie as we travelled towards our destination, the only cover that might anything a few hills on our sides. The Sharingan picked up no signs on life beside the occasional small animal or a grazing herd in the distance.

I flipped out without a sound, hopping on my toes ahead of the party and stopping to feel the ground. This close up, I could feel the traces of a chakra, the foreign feeling that reacted to a sense that was neither temperature nor scent nor texture but simply _there_ , at an non-definable primal base.

Infinitesimal for my eyes did not pick it up, and had my paranoid sense borne out of checking every corner and window for people that were not quite fond of me in the world I had left behind, it would have gone entirely unnoticed.

What could be the meaning of this?

A shadow that now fell over my shoulder, grey hair forming a spiky silhouette with no outline of a book. "Sense something, Sasuke?"

"Small traces of chakra."

"You're a sensor?" Lazy eyes seemed to see behind my onyx disguise to the blood-red irises.

"No."

"Oh. How lucky then." The jounin looked ahead, eye scrunched against the sun.

"Luck doesn't exist." I got up, dusting myself off. Kakashi said nothing besides a pat on the head and returned to the carriage which had paused. Would that I could have made a shadow clone, I'd have asked for permission scout further, but alas.

We resumed travelling, my teammates more vigilant but Kakashi just as aloof without his book. In the afternoon a break was called for lunch, for which our client did not step outside her dainty vessel, while Naruto chatted up her workers a mile a minute, getting to know them all.

It was the first time I felt bored in this world. Bored, because I couldn't do anything. Couldn't wander off, couldn't talk to anyone about what I was really thinking, and to top it off, I had really become accustomed to leaping along trees to travel distances than walking on the ground so long.

If anything, it felt like waiting for a class to end.

The quarry was not solved even when Sakura took out an apple for me. It wasn't from the shop I usually visited and thus not as crispy, but it was still an apple.

I still thanked her, poor soul could try.

It was when we were a quarter of an hour from our destination did trouble stir. The only clue that something was wrong was when the sound of wood splintering reached my ears. In the blink of an eye, there were three ninja where before there were none, a destroyed carriage with a mutilated log in its remains, with no sign of our client.

In another blink, my Sharingan refocused. I've been near gunshots louder and more lethal to freeze now, damn it.

"Hey, she's vanished!" A high male voice, one I did not recognize, yelled.

"As expected of the Copy Ninja," A female voice drawled, dust still billowing while the genin stared at the unwanted visitors in shock. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a flare of Kakashi's chakra as it seemingly teleported through intervals.

 _A shadow clone body-flickering the client to safety._ Smart.

"I'm afraid I didn't get your name. No offense." Another copy of my teacher waved at the tall brunette kunoichi, garbed in dun robes like her companions, long sleeves concealing her hands entirely.

A part of my brain was awed at how fearless they were, standing in a cloud of dust whilst clad in black trousers. Another realized they wore no insignia to verify their village.

"None taken. There's no need to introduce ourselves," The leader smirked at Kakashi.

"Cause dead people have no use for names, right?" Naruto's voice cut across the ground unexpectedly. I nearly smacked my forehead. Leave it to him ruin the monologue of a kunoichi who had either no reason to run from Hatake Kakashi or was very cocky.

"Genin?" The unnamed saboteur asked.

"Genin." Kakashi eye-smiled in response.

"Sheesh, you could teach him some manners."

"Maa, I do apologize." Why he had to say that with a kunai in his hand, I do not know. I took it a small measure of comfort that he hadn't unveiled his Sharingan. Yet.

"Oh please." One of her companions, the stocky one rounded on Naruto, who was immediately flanked by Sakura. The third, slender and agile ninja turned towards me, collar covering up to his nose. Lines were drawn.

And I knew, that unless someone stopped them, they would carry out their mission no matter what. Just like us. Between investigating and rendering the reason for their assignment mute (which would be in vain in case the failed assassination's motives were personal), the simpler task was to kill them. Or at least their supposed leader in hopes they other two would retreat.

Fighting would be a lot easier if my heart wasn't somewhere around my ankles, at the moment. Discretely I steadied my breathing. No panic, bad genin.

"...You're cute." The enemy placing me in mortal peril commented, her voice quite bubbly.

My train of thought slowed and began to take off like aeroplane.

"Pardon?"

"You. Have. Pretty. Face." The kunoichi wagged a sleeve at me. Shrugged, "It'd be a shame to kill you."

In the distance rubble flew and the adult ninjas fought, hard to follow, while Naruto led an assault with his shadow clones on the only male member of this assassination party.

And in this disarray I found another opportunity I had not known I was missing in this world; to be myself entirely.

Casually spinning a kunai in a guarded, but non-threatening posture, I winked at her. "I myself find myself at odds to spill the blood of a maiden with hair as cute as yours."

I clamped down on ensuing shock within me when she actually blushed, reaching up to caress her rough pixie cut. "Do you always flirt with your enemies, pretty boy?"

I've never flirted with _anyone_ , period. There's more to life than love when you're chasing after dreams bigger than the Empire State Building. What have I gotten myself in to?

"You're the first girl to particularly catch my eye in this world." Honesty is the best policy, is it not? The tomboy hid her mouth behind a sleeve probably concealing senbon I ought to be concerned about, if not for the red brushing across her nose. Was Sasuke/I really that good looking?

"What's your name?" Tomboy-san asked over grunts of Naruto and Sakura's shrieks as she took cover. I tried to not feel guilty about having a much easier time than them.

"Shouldn't you be more concerned about your team?"

"Eh, they treat me like shit anyways. That bitch was the one who sheared my hair in the first place."

Warily, I scanned for a genjutsu and came up negative. Her expressions certainly weren't faltering or body language being inconstant as when one was lying.

"You do realize you just mouthed insubordination?"

"Well, it's not like I wanted to be a ninja."

I can definitely see now why the highest probability of becoming missing-nin belongs to Genin, if this person was one, judging by her talk. Or was she trying to lull me into a state of fake security, before she-

A metallic hiss, strands snipping off my bangs as I tilted forward, my deduction proved true before I could finish it. Wordlessly we charged at each other.

Throwing a feint towards her face, I smashed my left fist just below her guarding arms into her solar plexus. Without pause, I clasped my hands and elbowed her stomach.

An uppercut with a palm, snaking a hand under and over an arm carrying a shaky fist, I clasped her shoulder and twisted her wrist. But before I could restrain or pin my opponent down, her free hand landed a blow somewhere that had me seeing stars.

 _Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional..._

Even as I felt all organs were being squished into my, I leaped out of her range. Damn, I wish I had some of Gai's training now.

Yes, _that_ training.

There was no time to think, I moved before I registered the senbon coming at me. Two hit the ground behind me, the third easily slid through my white shorts to prick my thigh.

 _Shit, faster than shuriken!_ A tiny part of me wondered why I hadn't acquired senbon. Many would say they are for weapon specialists whose bread and butter is their accuracy, but I could now attest to the fact that these things were damn noiseless.

"Aw, it seems my penetration was a bit rough. You're bleeding, cutie."

She did _not._

"Usually it's the guys who do that, I'm terribly sorry for just thrusting in during the foreplay."

She just _did_.

 _No._

The same voice, borne of too many stupid attempts to jump over gaps too wide, repeated a phrase that had saved my life countless times in New York.

 _Not yet. You will_ not _fall for a trap as obvious as this._

"Maa," I drawled like my teacher as my eyes bore into hers. "You should be prepared to take responsibility then, shouldn't you?" I winked.

Whether it was my provocation, or part of her strategy all along, she will her chakra and let the ground swallow here. Hiding like a Mole Technique, was it?

Obvious downfalls include the opponent knowing you're underground, ruining the element of surprise, vulnerable to techniques if the exit and entry is not fast enough, but her level was more than enough to deal with me. And the last, I was the target. She had to come at me.

My opponent was much more surprised than I thought when she finally emerged, genjutsu making it appear as if she was jumping out from all four directions with six senbons glinting in both hands, lodging into my back.

The back of the me who was a clone over a log, substituted many moments ago when I realized the endgame of her technique. Add to the fact that the Sharingan found her the instant she emerged, I ambushed her ambush, kneeing her squarely the small of her back.

I may or may not have been feeling resentful about that crotch-shot earlier.

"It seems you have fallen for me. Did I take your breath away?" Kunai digging into her nape with both her wrists and thumbs restrained by ninja wire, I warned, "Best not move. Any accidental cut here, and full-body paralysis is certain."

A pained grunt. "You sound like you're not going to kill me." Sarcasm, but I could imagine the resigned expression on her face, along with a little wistfulness in her voice I thought was hope.

"I wish I was that naive."

"I kinda wish you were..." A frail hope, a prayer behind the curtains of sarcasm.

"Oh well. My favourite fruit is mango." Tomboy-san changed the topic flippantly, making me tense my grip on the kunai that already piercing her skin and drawing blood. "Ouch, I'm not going anywhere. That hurts like a bitch. Be done or get lost." She snarled.

I swallowed my dry throat, before responding awkwardly. "Apples."

"What?"

"I like apples. Did you know; gods of death love apples?"

"They do? Are you my Shinigami then, cutie?"

The image of a spiky white mane and otherworldly yellow eyes crossed my mind.

"No, I don't even use a tanto."

There was a soft landing next to us, the conclusion to the battle of older ninjas that were probably our team leaders. Kakashi said nothing, looking from me, to her, to the kunai and then meeting my eyes with his.

 _What now?_

"I don't suppose if I let you go, you'll abandon your objective, tomboy-san?"

She snorted derisively, but the Sharingan picked up the muscles of her neck knotting in fear, before she breathed harshly. "The only choice is to complete the mission after you're gone and return with the bitch as a casualty, or be taken down by hunter-nin a week later."

Kakashi's eye was narrowing in a way that he was onto something- right. Scrutinizing her statement, a factoid from one of Sasuke's academy lectures slipped into my thoughts. Only villages with Kages had hunter ninjas, those who went after the rogues of their village if feasible.

Another very unlikely option was to take her as a prisoner. The more I pondered, the heavier the kunai in my hand felt. My breathing quickened, the beating of my heart resonating between my ears.

It wasn't really in our details to _murder_ any bandits or assassins we were to come across, although expected but not explicitly told, and it's not like our client didn't know our job was done once she was in the village safely, and she also didn't not know the risks of living wherever she did about whoever wanted her dead _could_ hire shinobi just like she did-

A gloved hand came to rest on my shoulder, callused finger tips gripping with gentleness. "Maa, I thought our blond friend was the emotional one. You know, the client has ninja guarding her house. But they can't leave the town, even for her."

The weapon fell from my boneless hands with a small clang against a rock. "I need to go check on my teammates."

"Try not to do anything when lets you go, Mango-chan." Kakashi squatted down and picked up my kunai, calling the tomboy by her favourite fruit. How long had he been there?

Slowly, I let go of the girl pinned under me and jumped off. Strangely unable to make eye-contact, I turned away. But when she began to speak, my feet rooted themselves into the ground.

"Sometimes, I think if the people who keep ranting about how the world is so cold just shut up, they'll realize that the world is so cold is because people like them keep thinking it is and justify what they do by blaming it."

Unsure of what to say, I just turned to give her the tiniest of smiles, and all too often iteration.

"Hn."

* * *

So. Not really sure how this chapter comes across. I wanted some trolling in wave but the dice did not fall on the number of that slip of paper.


	6. Chapter 6

So many follows and favourites. I just hope as many of you read it as you follow :P This is a slow chapter. Although there's an action scene, it's much more about the subliminal hints. What? You thought I'd make you sit through a boring re-do of scenes? Hopefully my writing style is engaging enough to not put you to sleep and gloss over foreshadowed hints.

* * *

¬.¬

 **Chapter 6: In Which the Boy Doth Protest None**

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* * *

 _"Where has selflessness taken me? For long, I have been waiting for myself." ~_ Meer Taqi Meer _._

* * *

Our first brush with death was still destined to be on our first C-rank, when we reached the village of Sumeragi-sama to find three guards murdered. Had they not been targeted by a ninja that was soon dispatched by Kakashi's clone, we would never have seen dead humans.

It was attending their funerals that were the last, heavy memory on that mission, never mind the brush with death or the fact Naruto and Sakura knocked an enemy ninja unconscious.

For me, death was nothing new, having lived in the world where the law was a greater danger to you than the lawless. As one apt fictional pirate suggested, you can trust dishonest men to be dishonest, but you never know what the honest, self-righteous morons would do.

It was the decision to take a life which was my cynosure on that first C-Rank. Even now, the thought of slashing a kunai across her throat nauseated me, which led me to break character for Sasuke and head for something sweet and soothing.

The novelty had finally worn off, and at times I even worried about getting back to my own world. I curse my unfinished assignments mostly, but there were people I thought I would like to meet again, tell that one cool biology teacher what happened to me, or even think of something to help the agitated aunt I lived with, who for all her faults and clear disdain still kept me alive and clean.

But onto lighter matters, Kakashi had suggested I try some calming tea. To be fair, try was a generous word. As a senior ninja who had grown up without needing it, still a bit immature, he viewed it as a medicine for old men and troubled youngsters, and his attitude towards such remedies was childish. A chip off the old block, he was a believer in sucking it up, but knew his opinions were not constructive for a genin.

Or so I assumed, thinking back to see if the eccentric jounin escaping hospitals was what happened here in reality as I reached a famous dango shop. _The_ dango shop, in fact.

Post-mission leave was two days, so there was ample time to visit it. But the way we informed of it, by the chunin behind the desk who had taken our report, he still thought we'd be fine without it.

Pushing aside the banner at the entrance, I stepped inside to a crowd of adults. At this time, most genin would be training or on a D-Rank, but the social atmosphere at the shop was the furthest thing on my mind while walking to this place.

 _Of course Kakashi would suggest something no other teacher would advise their genin._ Hell, I'd bet other Konoha teams would have their troubles dealt with personal guidance than this offhand approach.

Or maybe the S-Rank ninja was saving money by not accompanying me here. That also sounded more like him.

Pretending not to feel multiple eyes on me, I sat into a lonely table, its bench attached to it, in the centre of the food place. A waitress hurried to me, smiling.

"What would you like?" She chirped, smoothing her black apron that identified every other worker in the shop.

"A cup of calming tea. And some dangos. One plate." I held up a finger in case she misheard in the din of background conversation. She nodded, disappearing quickly. I could definitely see the bias when my order reached me before another table whose customers were present before I arrived.

I wonder if I'd see Anko here, though...

Considering the chunin exams were upcoming in but a few days, it was no wonder I did not get to see her, but the tea was indeed soothing, with a touch of lemon and the dangos were bland, a bit chewy but with great texture, covered in a sauce that seemed sweet and savoury at the same time.

I can see why Itachi-niisan loved these. Even as an S-Rank criminal, he did make a stop at this shop. Or will. But I digress.

It was a meal that would have cost a fortune in the world I left behind, and I had no doubt the rice dumplings would be smaller than these generous servings.

Thanking the waitress, I asked her if there was any way I could have some for home. The question was unneeded, because I knew she would make a way if there wasn't one.

So with another plate for later, I was on my own way home, until I ran across a familiar scene. The only familiar scene since Team Seven was formed in fact.

Kankuro in his purple smudged face was an intimidating sight, adding to that he was a giant teenager from Konohamaru's perspective.

"Boss!" He wailed as Naruto and Sakura, followed by Moegi and Udon, came into view.

"That's the Hokage's grandson. Unhanding him would be appreciated." My dry voice cut across the street, heads whipping towards me even as boy was dropped to the ground. I wasn't trying to be stealthy, but if I had managed to go undetected, it was a good sign.

"For the family of the leader of your village, he doesn't have much manners." Kankuro spoke to me, still eyeing the brat as he rushed back to my blond teammate.

 _How hypocritical_.

But before I could manage a riposte, something stirred my instincts.

The Sharingan hidden behind my lenses picked up a third person, his chakra shining marine green, tinged by red. A sort of red which sometimes became evident when someone on my team made too many shadow clones.

Gaara, no doubt.

Hold on, marine green, you wonder? Each person has a different chakra colour, rather than simply blue. My own was purple, which I had attributed to simply being a cross product of my red-tinted vision and the fallacy that everyone had blue chakra.

"Hey, you're the one with no manners!" Naruto shouted. "Better smart up bud, or you're gonna be taught a lesson by none other than Uzumaki Naruto. Believe it!"

"Right. What he said." I said with uncharacteristic sarcasm and nodded, before turning to Temari. "If you're as smart as you're beautiful, I suggest you avoid getting into any trouble during your stay."

I could feel Sakura spluttering without even turning my back. The blond girl, still fair despite her home being a desert, smiled at me, placing a hand on her hip.

"I apologize for my brother, we were in the wrong this time. What's your name? Temari, by the way." Said brother rolled his eyes at the actions of his sister, before glaring at me.

"Uchiha Sasuke. Well then, you shouldn't keep your friend waiting." Looking in Gaara's general direction, I shrugged and went on my way, not pausing to see how they paled.

"What just happened?" Naruto scratched his head, looking to a fuming Sakura for answers. He didn't get any.

* * *

It was after training that evening, when our eccentric teacher was done checking our muscle development and body posture, did he explain to us about the upcoming chance for promotion, to no surprise from me.

"And that's how it is." Kakashi said, handing us all a form for the chunin exams.

"Heh, this is gonna be awesome!" Naruto eagerly began to read his paper. "Sakura-chan, what do you think?"

"Are the chunin exams why we have that bi- foreign ninjas in the village?" The pink-haired girl asked our teacher instead. Kakashi blinked, definitely catching the slip of tongue.

"Maa, did you run into any? Don't worry, it's all under control."

Frowning, I could see a different kind of determination ablaze in her green eyes.

"I'll be there." Without much fanfare besides his jaunty wave, Kakashi disappeared in a body-flicker, leaving us three to disperse. Today was not a day for hanging out at Ichiraku, as Sakura bowed out to seriously mull over her application and I wanted to go home and meditate.

Meditate? The reason was an arcane one, but upon experimentation held results. According to my self-developed theory borne of too many chakra techniques that required breathing, I came to a realization.

Chakra is always in motion, involuntarily, like the beating of the heart, the breathing of the lungs, the blinking of the eyes. It explained why when chakra was exuded from the body – feet, hands, or mouth- more from all available tenketsu rushed towards the area from where it was being released.

Put simply, it created a drop in the potential, a sort of sink, towards which chakra from higher potential rushed to.

And according to some aspects of chakra theory, breath moved your chakra. Detailed observation of Gai with a Sharingan (some people use his village wide training route as a way to keep time) showed that his breathing was impeccable.

There was a sharp exhale with his each blurry fist that the Sharingan barely saw, slow intake through the nose when he paused and most importantly, the way his chakra seemed to simmer in that refractory period when he rested, matching the tune of his breathing, before bursting with his motion again.

He was the only person I knew yet who managed to leave an afterimage with his blazing green chakra, streaks of light flashing in my vision with his swipe of his limbs.

It made sense how Lee, with his deformed chakra coils, could still use chakra. He ingrained his breathing with muscle memory, and used it in a way that was the second-best way to utilize it, for he did not mould it and thus it experienced less loss in power because it did not travel from his belly to his fists and kicks.

(Second-best, because Tsunade had an even better technique, tied up there with the Gentle Fist)

And so, since a week ago, I had begun to regularly meditate to practice breathing. It began with simply breathing while sitting, and then slowly going through my taijutsu forms with a focus on my breath, even as heart-rate quickened.

It was the most slow-rewarding training I had even begun before our C-Rank, after which it became more a matter of necessity than simply training to maintain my mind because of the decisions this career path might decide for me. But it was a life I had to live for someone else, in case he returned, and I hadn't much in the way of options.

With the chunin exams starting tomorrow (Kakashi informed us quite late), I needed all the peace of mind I could get. But it was the day when I walked up to the exam building, Naruto and Sakura besides me each step that I had the notion that perhaps, Sasuke wasn't coming back.

* * *

"Whoa, that guy looks just like the Ero-Jounin." Naruto said as Lee was sent to the ground by the disguised chunin, Kotetsu and Izumi. "Does that pervert have kids?"

Sakura blinked, cocking her head towards Naruto. The blonde grinned back. "It's a long and weird story, Sakura-chan."

"Hn."

"Well, if you say so." The girl acquiesced, not asking further, but the problem- err, person in question was up and staring at me, too close for comfort.

"Uchiha Sasuke, I challenge you!" Rock Lee yelled. As Naruto protested and Sakura berated the most youthful member of Team Nine for persistent unwanted advances, I pretended to sigh, hiding a smirk.

"I might as well accept, Rock Lee." My voice cut across the bickering even as Neji and Tenten reached us. Lee had stopped dead in his tracks.

"You...you know of me?"

"We know of your teacher too, that Ero-Jounin!" Naruto effectively cut across any better statement I might have made. If only I could punch him right now.

"I know Gai sensei has a...complex personality," Tenten said, looking thoroughly offended, "but what you say should have limits."

Naruto gulped in the face of feminine anger, but refused to give up his claim. "But it's true!"

"Yosh, I will combat you not just to test my prowess, but to defend Gai-sensei's honour as well!" Lee exclaimed, eyes burning. "Follow me!"

Unable to protest against an even more determined Rock Lee, I had no choice but to follow him to a sparring area within the Academy building. Soon we stood on opposite sides, making the seal of confrontation.

"I have heard great things about you, the last genius of the Uchiha Clan," The green-clad boy said, sliding his left arm behind his back and spacing his legs. "Rookie of the year, well-versed in all aspects of being a ninja, and not to mention you possess the most coolest and hip attitude among us genin! Even Gai-sensei admits it."

 _Again with the last genius_...but I suppose mentioning my wicked, super, special, to the end loving me and awesome older brother was in bad taste.

Nonetheless I smirked, making the first blows not physical but mental. "It takes a lot of hard work. That genius is decided at birth is perhaps the greatest lie we tell each other."

Lee visibly faltered, open palm levelled against me closing into a fist. "What are you saying? Don't you know how hard it is for a normal person to catch up to the potential the likes of you possess?!"

"Don't ask me, ask yourself; who will the one holding back?" Not wasting further time, minding my breathing, I charged at him unlike I had ever rushed an enemy before, towards my most formidable opponent to date.

Lee was quick to block my punch before slamming his fist between my ribs. Gasping, I countered with a left elbow that he caught, and then swung my arm outward to backhand across the face. Lee used the momentum to put distance between us, spinning as he performed a low kick to kick my ankles off. With my centre of gravity lost he pressed with a high kick to send me sprawling.

I fell halfway and jumped back up on my toes, lithe as a cat.

The Leaf Whirlwind, I gathered was that last move, before Lee rushed me. My forearms burned as his fist cannoned my guard, making me opting for dodging, only attacking when I could afford to block effectively.

 _Right, left, right, left, left kick!_ I bent at me knee and swooped at his ankles hard, my foot jarring even as kicked off this weight. The older genin slapped his hands to the floor and launched an uppercut with his heel, sandals skimming my chin as I jerked back.

Clasping the offending leg with my hands I thrust my foot onto his thigh, then his core muscles, using his abs as a step to leap back. To his credit, the taijutsu prodigy did not even let a single yelp escape at the blows to his femur and near his solar plexus.

"You are indeed as skilled as they say." Lee commended, breathing harshly. "The only one who can keep with my assault is my teammate, Hyuga Neji."

I made no mention of how his patterns were predictable after watching Gai, the lack of flexibility in his move sets a clear sign of rigid repetitions.

"I'm sure he works hard as well." I said, wiping my chin on the back of my hand. It came away with no blood, but an abrasion was no doubt present.

"That may be, but he is also like you, born a genius. But that does not matter, because I'm about to end this right now."

Lee's form lit up with his chakra, rushing from his head where the first, Gate of Opening was located, and flooding his body.

 _Here it comes..._ I could see, but not react in time to the opening of the Primary Lotus, Lee covering the distance between us in a single breath and-

I lost all sense of direction, gravity as I was kicked upwards, but my instincts soon returned. I could feel the Sharingan spinning, recording everything that was happening.

It made sense and yet it did not when my opponent jumped vertically but managed to position himself horizontally below me, following my ascent.

 _There is a genius in this fight...and it's not me._

Augmenting my muscles with chakra, well used to the feeling of being in the air, I somersaulted and thrust myself down with both feet, bushy eyebrows rising in shock as the forbidden technique was cut halfway.

We fell in a tumble of limbs, because I had kicked with all the force of my weight Lee's stomach, and that in turn knocked the breath out of him. And as mentioned before, breath moves chakra.

Still, we stood up at the exact same time, him with his injuries and me fighting off a bout of sudden vertigo, when there was a noise, smoke, and on top of red tortoise the appearance of none other than-

"Lee! What is the Meaning of This?!" Maito Gai proclaimed for the world to hear, ending our fight and a few of my hearing cells.

"Gai-sensei!" Lee yelled back, distraught. "I'm sorry Gai-sensei, I didn't mean to, but for once, I just wanted to show off that I too could defeat a genius!"

"And to do that, you went against the commands of your teacher? Have I ever taught you anything wrong?"

"No, Gai-sensei! I am ready to take any punishment-" A youthful sucker punch and the student fell to the floor in front of his teacher.

"Lee, I know how you feel. Forgive me, but I will do what's best for you even if it means demanding more patience from you than reasonable!"

"Gai-sensei!"

"Lee!"

My mouth fell in harmony with the rest of Team Seven when a sunset appeared out of nowhere. I deactivated, and then reactivated my Sharingan.

It was _still_ there.

Some mysteries of the universe, the eternal questions of the past, present and future, and the phenomenon of youth inducing sunset in the afternoon, they are beyond the reach of men and women as simple as us.

Even as the illusion was shattered by a cry of _"It's that Ero-jounin!"_ I could not help but think about it.

* * *

"Heh, it looks like all the academy class is gathered here." Kiba smirked when we entered the room. Naruto caught sight of Hinata, and stepped behind me, almost like he was hiding. Acknowledging his behaviour to be somewhat my fault, I let him.

"Oh, Sasuke-kun!" Ino chirped, but Naruto had my back both figuratively and literally as shooed her off with a hand, preventing a back hug.

Was it me, or were Sakura's glares more baleful towards her than I remembered? She fiddled with a pink lock, and thus the realization hit me. Temari was blond. So was Ino. In my tired state, I had let some of my honest thoughts seep through, which Sakura had taken more seriously than imagined.

Teams Seven, Eight, Ten were gathered before Kabuto came to address ruckus. There was gentleness in his voice, an aura so sincere I might have mistaken him for a friend where I considered others allies had I not known.

"Quiet down you guys, you're attracting unwanted attention- and danger," Said the most deadly person in the room to us, a wry smile on his face as he introduced himself and explained his reasons for butting in.

"Oh, it seems these have your attention, Naruto-kun." Kabuto flaunted his ninja info cards.

"Yeah! Do you think we'll have time for card games in an exam?"

"These aren't playing cards," Kabuto said, almost apologetically. "These are ninja-info cards, here, watch." With a flick of his hand, the blank surface of a card disappeared to show its backside, which again flipped to show Naruto's profile.

Eagerly, the Jinchuuriki snatched it out of purple-gloved hands, eager to see what secrets were there.

"Wow, it's got all the number of missions we did, and that weird star thingy the academy reports had! Where did you get my picture though?" At last he scrunched his face in suspicion.

"All of this available knowledge to a fellow shinobi. Until you're chunin, no one seriously guards this stuff behind the _good_ locks and seals. But um, don't tell?" Kabuto pleaded Naruto. Leaning conspiratorially, he made an offer in a stage-whisper. "I did kinda break some rules, and if you promise to not tell anyone, I'll show you the card of a genin you want to see."

"Why not your own card and another one? You already know mine." Naruto bartered with much more acumen than what most people expected of him. "Besides, if you broke any rules, I'm not gonna be a part of it. Believe it."

Kabuto blinked, before smirking. "Alright, Naruto-kun."

"Can you show me a card?" Sakura asked suddenly, "Temari, she's from Suna."

 _You have got to be kidding me. Am I surrounded by what, twelve year olds?_

Kabuto smiled. "Sure, I do remember having something about those Suna ninjas." A dexterous shuffle of cards and soon he was handing a card to Sakura, hidden from all others.

Before I could voice anything to my female teammate, Ibiki showed up and the show was on. There was a chart according to which we sat, after randomly drawing numbers from a box; hence the seating arrangement was slightly different.

I enjoyed the written exam, a reminder, perhaps a relic of the world left behind. But it was a formality. Even without it, we would advance.

Thus Team Seven passed.

But where others had their fires rekindled by Naruto's outburst against the mental pressure and anxiety, I had only despair within me. Masking it behind a stoic Uchiha mask, I acknowledged the regret of not raising my hand before the tenth question.


	7. Chapter 7

Wow, so many follows. If we get to 500, you're gonna have a bonus chapter in which the OC's life and personality will be shown, if any of you are interested (thank DeadThingsStayDead for this idea). Onwards! Since this is going into AU, things are slightly different outside the Forest of Dead, and completely different inside. And Allama Iqbal is my favourite poet, perhaps the bestest poet ever :D

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 **Chapter 7: In Which The Boy Isn't Ready**

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" _He is true guide and teacher of your age,_  
 _Who can with present fill your mind with rage*._ "

~Allama Iqbal

*Official translation used, real word used is "baezaar" which translates more to weary, tired, exasperated.

* * *

"Oi Sasuke, you eat something bad?" Naruto asked as we exited the classroom after Anko's entrance, following the boisterous woman.

"Hn." As far I was concerned, there wasn't any crack in my performance yet, but now was a limited time window to see if I could tip anyone off about the hostile elements lurking among us.

The first order of the matter was Gaara, the unstable Jinchuuriki. With the Leaf having a clan like Hyuga, there was no doubt they'd notice something about him the moment he came within sight of the village.

The Byakugan was extraordinarily perceptive, and the simple matter of truth was that the Hyuga bloodline limit was the superior observation tool even to the Mangekyou.

The Hokage had to know, but considering he let Naruto participate and only had rumours to go on about Gaara, nefarious ones as they were no doubt, he was sentimental enough to dismiss them exaggerations. Exhibit A: Orochimaru.

Additionally, there wasn't any specific law barring a Jinchuuriki from taking part in a chunin exam. And I doubt any Konoha ninja of import would take to it kindly if I, the last recognized of the Uchiha, implied that the Kazekage's son had a few screws loose and somebody heard. Sarutobi Hiruzen-sama would hardly entertain me anymore than the President would have if I wanted to meet him directly.

(Contrary to common belief, the Hokage visited a lot of orphans over the year; Naruto was just a case special enough to make his prankster self end up in his office outside of visits which is how he knew him, according to the blond himself. The Sandaime visiting just him would attract attention, if anything. I still have no answer why he has so much damn paperwork.)

An implication was enough of an insult, never mind the attitude Suna itself had to the poor boy. Political allies, they'd take whatever reparations or fouls they could benefit from.

And the next matter was Kabuto. The way things would play out, it would only be a matter of my word against his, who had years on me as a shinobi of the Leaf. More years as member of ROOT as well.

It took being caught in the act by an ANBU squad which ousted him, and even then he escaped. Not only did I need to convince people that he was a spy, but that he needed people of the calibre of Kakashi to apprehend him.

I could see that turning out fantastic. And after having Kabuto arrested, we would have Naruto become Hokage and Danzo apologize for stealing the eyes of my family in the form of a freestyle rap with Enka music, Shikamaru would become Gai's disciple, and Sakura and Ino would give up over me and marry each other and Orochimaru would admit all he wanted was to be loved.

"I'm completely okay." I said. Perhaps an infinitesimal amount of stress from the exams was affecting me.

"You're going to do great Sasuke-kun!" Sakura encouraged from my side. Resisting the urge to sigh, I jumped ahead a few branches.

"Well, if you say so. We got some free minutes." Naruto continued as he caught up. "Wonder where she's taking us though."

"The Forest of Death. Probably." I added. God, did I need to meditate.

"HUH? THE FOREST OF DEATH?!" Naruto burst out, nearly tripping on a branch. I would have actually punched him then, distance from the ground be damned, had Anko not whipped her head back to look at us.

"I believe the proper name was Training Ground 44." Sakura muttered, shivering. "But nobody calls it that anymore. Why do you think we're going there, Sasuke-kun?"

"I said _probably_. On our forms it said they are not responsible for our deaths or injuries. There's only one training ground that causes death and we're we'd allow genin from other villages to stay for the survival exercise, as is the norm with the second stage of the chunin exams," I batted away a small branch before continuing, "That woman said she'll cut down our numbers. The best place to do that is the Forest of Death. It has been used before."

I didn't elaborate with an example, because I had read it from the biography of the Second Hokage, founder of ROOT. The Konoha library had its civilian section open day and night, and as I had some nights where I couldn't sleep, I easily snuck into there.

But I shall kid you not, for my line of deduction is indeed bullshit.

Thinking of Orochimaru, I frowned openly. Kakashi had trained us harshly in taijutsu, but he hadn't taught us any other thing besides which we learned ourselves. I still didn't know the body-flicker.

"Wow, sometimes I forget you can talk." Naruto grinned at me. As usual, I could tell he was impressed but he didn't say anything about it.

"Great thinking, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura added her smart quip and I sighed internally. Absently I patted my pouch, only to find I had no more apples.

In hindsight, I knew I'd be here for a week. I should have stocked up; I thought a tad childishly when we finally arrived before the fenced entrance of the forest.

"Alright you little bugs, this here is the Forest of Death." Anko smirked into the faces of the tense hopefuls gathered in the eerily silent clearing, the temperature a few degrees colder it the shadows of looming trees. "And that over there is the booth for the consent form so we don't have to trouble ourselves looking for your bodies in case you can't get out.

"Now listen, you primitive excuse for ninjas, I won't repeat myself. You'll all be provided with a scroll. There are two types. A blue one and a white one, the earth and heaven scrolls. You need to bring both to pass to the tower located in the middle of the forest. It's equidistant from all entrances. If it's not, I wouldn't be there to hear your bitching anyway," Here she grinned, a predatory expression that twisted my insides. "Anything goes in the forest to get two scrolls. Now, step to it!"

With a gesture towards the booth, she glared at a random team who hurriedly shuffled forward to sign their forms and get a scroll.

"Ooh, that guy looks like a mummy. You know, those bandaged men from mangas." Naruto pointed out the team from Sound, who were none too subtly glaring at us. Ah, me and my handsome face.

There was a whistling sound to my right, completely unexpected. Nicking my collar as I titled to the right, a kunai went by.

"Aw, you're a fast one." Anko's voice came from behind me. I jumped, and hated myself for it. "And pretty smart too, Uchiha, from what I hear."

I tried to smile, but I caught sight of someone with a Grass headband. Seeing my expression of fear, the exam proctor smirked, misunderstanding entirely. "Now that's what I like to see. Try not to get killed out there."

"Yeah, you too." I muttered absently, not taking my eyes off whoever Orochimaru was disguised as. Catching my gaze, Anko glanced to her back held out her hand, forcing the not-Grass genin to return her weapon like a sane person.

"Why thank you." Anko smiled. If only I could follow her example and smile in the face of dangerous humans. A fall from the Hokage Monument? A minor problem compared to knowing who was beneath the mask of that genin.

"You're most welcome," and he proceeded to unneccesarily stick his tongue out.

Sneaking away, I rejoined Sakura and Naruto who were watching the scene play out, among many others with tense curiosity. Shaking my head, I couldn't help but glare at Naruto.

" _Hn._ "

"Teme, how is it _my_ fault?!"

 _Obviously, she heard you and deduced that I was the one who correctly guessed the exam location_. But of course, what I said was,

"Hn."

"Whatever. It's in the past. Forget it."

"It just happened, you idiot."

"Knock it off guys, we're in an exam." Sakura hissed, stepping between us and jabbing us both with her elbows. "It's our turn to sign form."

With a final disdainful sniff, I turned to walk towards the booth, walking faster to outpace Naruto and receive our forms. As usual, the future Hokage didn't read much before signing it and handing it in. He soon came back with a blue scroll in hand.

The Earth, as opposed to Heaven. This meant we had to go for a Heaven scroll.

As we readied ourselves to enter the forest, exchanging looks and reassuring ourselves, I thought back to the one thing I did not regret. Even if we had not gone up against the Demon of the Mist, my team could do it. We were more skilled, if not experienced, because I had at least managed to do something.

* * *

"So, what's the plan?" Naruto asked, crouched in the branches above, ten minutes into the Forest of Death. "This place gives me the creeps. And it's lunch time."

"Food and water are our greatest priority," Sakura whispered back. Perhaps it was the exam, perhaps it the forest itself. It made you want to be deathly quiet. I looked at my teammates, building the confidence in my heart. We would get through this.

"I packed three days rations. Between us, they can run for today and tomorrow morning. There are plenty of rivers and streams in here. You guys have purification tablets?"

"I do, Sasuke-kun."

"Me too." Naruto nodded. "And a cup of ramen."

"Hn."

"Oi, I say nothing about your apples."

"Oh, I have an apple as well." Sakura blushed when I gave her an approving look. "How far do you think the tower is?"

"If you face no obstacles, it is possible to reach it in an hour and a half." I spoke, recalling the time for Gaara's team. "I haven't seen a map, but read it from the memoirs of a retired chunin."

Said chunin who used to be on Sakumo Hatake's team, but that was a point not worth mentioning. My teammates gaped at me, Naruto sputtering "Really, that's so easy!"

"That woman, Anko-san said it was equidistant from all gates." Sakura pointed out slowly. I blinked.

"What about it?" Naruto cocked his head. "Doesn't that mean we all have to cover like, the same distance?"

"Distance, yes," Sakura told him, going for the same conclusion I had reached. "But if you look underneath the underneath, distance includes all elevations and descents. Some teams do have unfair advantages, if they can cut through the forest by going straight ahead, with all its dangers. The tower is straight to our east. "

"Which means they won't give those paths to Konoha genin, 'cause that'd be really unfair." Naruto suggested, grinning. "Heh, no sweat. No ninja jumps through the leaves like us, believe it!"

I nodded. Switching to hand signals to see if he recalled them, I was relieved to see him respond in kind.

"Let's make plans just in case." I said, and after hushed discussion, after I was finally satisfied, I signed the first objective.

 _Find. Supplies. Move out. Copy?_

 _Copy._ The two signed back and we carried onward. The Second Phase was on.

* * *

By sundown, we had not run into any other teams, had found a stream to replenish our water canteens and some fish, Sakura's twisted ankle, which had happened when a swarm of carnivorous dragon-flies the size of dogs had chased us, was back to normal.

If I had ever any doubts that we would fall to gigantic insects or mammals, they were put to rest. In the Forest of Death, we were preyed upon by its small-fries.

Even the fish we caught, big as our forearms, had tried to lunge for my neck, before smashed it into a tree, causing a large set of leaves to fall down, which hit the ground and immediately closed around the edges of Naruto's trousers, tearing his orange garment.

Tired and frustrated, we were getting into each other's face. And hadn't that nearly caused a scene until Sakura, probably having a headache, smashed out foreheads together, our headbands clinking together.

At least it didn't end in a kiss.

On the other hand, I decided Sakura was quite fine when there were no other females around. And after being informed about Hinata, Naruto too had a better idea of what being asked out would feel like, so his attempts had also stopped.

As they should have. No dating until you've changed the world, or at least gotten married, I say. Running a cursory glance with my Sharingan around the trees, the river and the small patches of earth visible among the green forest floor, I noticed it.

Glowing amidst the red-tinted darkness of my vision were three different chakra signatures. One in the water at six o'clock. One in the trees, using chakra to stick themselves at two o'clock, behind Naruto. And the last on the forest floor, hiding behind a tree at ten o'clock.

A three point ambush from below, above and the back of two enemies. Whoever this team was, it had solid basics. Signing discretely to Naruto about plan number three, I sat down and tapped the enemy locations, doing my best to look vigilant.

"Ne, Sakura-chan, want help with that?" Naruto got up and walked over to our female teammate, who was busy trying to cook my catch. Leaving to him to inform her, I focused on keeping my breathing steady.

The blond was a great actor, I didn't notice any hiccups in his behaviour which might have given the game away. It was when the meal was ready, our hunger already magnified by the sight of food waiting to be eaten, did we get attacked.

Weapons rained from above, damn senbons of all things, while a splash sounded from behind us, followed by springing footsteps. In a flash, Naruto had shadow clones which ran off towards the stream and the trees.

Using my Sharingan, I flicked off two kunai, passing uninterrupted between the senbon towards the enemy in the trees before jumping away, leaving metal needled clattered on the grass in my wake.

There was a bang, a flash of light to my right. Glancing to where that particular kunai had come from, I found Sakura giving me thumbs up.

Biting down to urge to chastise her, but then again, she wasn't the one who waiting in line with weapons to fire off shuriken towards the ambushers.

There was a flash of movement in the smoke and a teen rushed towards me, curving to the right to build momentum. A symbol of the Leaf glinted off his forehead in the oncoming dusk, his brown hair rolled into a godforsaken man-bun.

Adrenaline coursing, I controlled my breathing and took off to meet his charge. Sprinting forward, I took off head over heels with a burst of chakra, adjusting its flow when I slipped past into the guard of the surprised boy and kicked his sternum at a lower angle than Rock Lee.

The result was that instead of flying up into the harmless canopy, my opponent crashed into a tree with a sound that caused me to wince, before slumping down, unable to move straight after getting up. Hurriedly, I grasped shuriken between by fingers and launched them, pinning him to the tree with dull thuds.

"Gennai! Tch, Uchiha bastard!" the female on the team glanced from where Sakura held her at bay with explosive tags hurled more senbons towards me.

What is it with these pale green sashes this team wears? I couldn't help but question as I stepped to the side, sprinting towards the ponytailed kunoichi.

I didn't pause to check my back, because multiple Naruto clones ran opposite to me to secure the guy nearly incapacitated by the Primary Lotus moves I had copied.

Taking out a kunai, the kunoichi steadied herself to meet me head-on, only to dodge as Sakura threw a loaded kunai her way. The kunoichi evaded the explosion, using the stirred dust to throw senbon which found purchase in my shirt, digging into my chest shallowly.

"Alright, hold it!" Naruto's shadow clone shouted while dragging the guy called Gennai to the middle, all tied up. "Stop fighting! We're all Konoha here!"

"Naive brat, so what?" The other male, with a wispy beard on his chin replied to the original Naruto. "This is an exam. It doesn't matter who take the scroll from."

"We've got an Earth scroll, so if you also have an Earth one, beat it." Naruto countered, looking a bit unsure.

"This is an exam." I said, all fighting at a standstill. "We don't have to kill you, but we can do enough to make sure Gennai doesn't live the rest of his days as a shinobi."

I could feel the intake of the breath from my ridiculous bluff. Idly, I twirled a kunai in my hand.

"That's a good one kid. You guys are hungry, tired, and the only kills you've made are the animal back in the academy. You don't have the guts." The male with the French beard stated, taking a step forward. Naruto inadvertently stepped back.

"See?" He grinned, pointing his kunai at my teammate. "Save yourself the trouble and just give us your scroll. This fight was over the moment you couldn't bring yourself to kill us."

"But...you're Konoha-nin...we're on the same side..." Sakura muttered, shaken and pale. Taking a deep breath, I gritted my teeth. This team didn't even make it to the preliminaries in the canon.

With that thought, I thrust myself towards the idiot so sure he could bring himself to kill me or my teammates. Startled, he made to defend himself but I was on him, reading the twitch of muscles, the shifting of his weight, launching a full assault mindless of the few hits I sustained myself.

The Sharingan was fearsome, I thought to myself as I finally kicked him away. There was a cut on the outside of my hand, a sharp pain in my ribs and my left shin throbbed a bit. Kunai clenched in my hand, ready to be thrown, I began to speak.

"I'm not going to pretend I can kill you, unlike _someone_ here," I said, running an eye over to Naruto and Sakura, who had gotten entangled in a fight with the female of the opposing team when I threw myself onto her leader. "But I have no qualms about beating you within an inch of your life. Leave."

I could see it in his expression, his hurt pride, as he gathered himself up and walked towards his teammates, neither of them as beat as him.

"Untie him when you get away from here," Naruto warned, his rare, sharp side showing. The wispy-bearded genin scoffed, but obeyed. Only when I was sure that they had left, did I become aware of the throbbing in my hand.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, as Naruto made shadow clones to salvage our campsite. "Are you alright?"

I turned my unsteady vision towards her, blinking in and out of focus. In the academy, over the course of four years, all genin followed a course of building immunity to certain commonplace poisons.

Wincing, I tried not to stagger. The only real problem was my intestines twisting out of hunger. "I think I'll be fine."

"At least let's clean your wound." Sakura insisted, taking out a small med-pack. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a Naruto in contemplation, looking at his own wounds.

By some coincidence, he returned the stare and I raised an eyebrow. He crossed his arm and spit to the side. Somehow, without words, we managed to communicate.

 _Don't do something stupid, moron._

 _Do I look like an idiot, bastard?_

After having my hand washed and bandaged, we attacked our cold food, not caring how bland it was. Sakura managed to produce an apple, which I halved and gave it to her. My own half I further halved with Naruto, leaving us boys a quarter each.

"But you guys did the most work!" She protested.

"Let's not argue over this." I said, taking off my forehead protector to rub my head. My hand did not throb anymore, but I felt a slight fever in its place. Hoping it was a sign my immune system was fighting back, I tied it back again.

That night we took watches as we had practiced on a survival exercise with Kakashi several times. With well-practiced techniques for sleeping, I managed to kip for a few short hours, removing my contact lenses and placing them in the small case I had brought.

The first day had gone by as such, with no progress. But the exam went on.


	8. Chapter 8

500+ follows. Shite. I didn't think it'd be that popular. I once joked with a reader that I'd release protagonist special chapter for insight into the SI-OC when I'd hit 500. Alas, tests are here again. And if the battle scenes, quick and short are bothersome, let me know. I like to keep stuff short in ninja battles. Also, do tell if anything is OOC (besides me taking the crap out of hurr-durr fanon tropes (like Sakura). That's half of what this fic is about).

EDIT: FF net is still giving me error type 2, so while I can't upload further I can edit online now. I apologize for the abysmal chapter and the truncated sentences before.

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 **Chapter 8: Chase to the Cut**

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 _"Who cares for the birds contained in cages? Those flown away are the only ones remembered." Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib._

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Hiding my movements amongst the rustling leaves as I rubbed my sore limbs, I watched Naruto arrange a breakfast of berries and unseasoned fish while Sakura snored, kunai dangling from her hand.

Feeling slightly better, I uncoiled the bandage around my hand to inspect it. My mouth had a funny taste, and I could detect the undercurrents of fever within my normally active body.

Once he was done, Naruto crept on all fours towards Sakura to shake her slightly, as I rinsed my hands economically with put on my contact lenses again, activating the Sharingan.

Experience kept her from falling out the tree as she woke, and I handed her my canteen of water to hydrate. Not taking much notice of ourselves, we kept our eyes on our surroundings as we ate the breakfast, trying to chew slowly.

It wasn't until Naruto brought out the bark of a plant used to commonly to treat lethargy and headaches did Sakura raised a brow and initiated the first conversation of the day.

"I wasn't aware these matured at this time of the year." She commented. Unaware of that knowledge in Sasuke's memory, I chalked it up to her superior memorization. It looked quite unfamiliar to me, the bark nearly as brown as chocolate.

"Hehe...I got lucky." Naruto ruffled his hair. Gratefully taking the small piece of wood, I placed it in my mouth and gave it a squeeze with my teeth.

An unwise decision it was, as its stinging juices set my gums on fire, but I did not question it as soon it began to ebb away, alleviating the ache behind my eyes. A world with chakra had a plethora of plants I was sure to not find in any known encyclopaedia back home.

Aware that any sign of pain was concealed by the stoic mask I wore, I sat down, somehow the default leader of the team, to start going over the planning session we had had last night one last time.

A 'standard' Uzumaki ambush, with extra knowledge from Sakura and Uchiha precision with weaponry. But before we could even think of moving out into the dawn, there was a retina-burning flash of light.

Reacting blindly, I leapt upwards, my body doing the opposite of what my brain was suggesting as my hands filled with shurikens instinctively. The charge had set off noise in the forest of animals and insects, masking whichever sods had attacked us.

Blinking away violet and white spots dancing along my vision, I had no time to wait as a Windmill shuriken cleaved through the branches. I tilted in alarm, smacking my forehead protector against the trunk.

"Sasuke!" Naruto, or his clone, my instincts said, landed next to me, already recovered. "Amegakure, one tall, two pipsqueaks, all of 'em can throw stuff! Especially needles!"

Knowing vaguely what to look for, I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes completely, pushing the pain out of my mind. "What about Sakura?"

"Boss has got her!"

The advantage of being able to see in poor lighting returning, I caught a small shape sneaking to our right, another huge shuriken in hand. As if sensing my gaze, they flung it before I could voice any warning.

Jumping down with a chakra powered leap in as the clone was dispelled; I launched a triplet of shuriken towards the last position of my attacker.

Landing silently, I wondered if the lack of an explosive tag being used was a good sign or bad in regards to one pink-haired teammate. Much to my chagrin, my headache had returned, though I did not feel like throwing up. Yet, however.

Straining my hearing, I followed the sounds of metal, subdued clunk, clonk and clanging and rushed towards the battle, to avenge today which had been ambushed without ever being an ambush.

How I wish I had not been a hasty fool.

Grains of sand steeped into the grass, crunching underfoot were the first clue. The taste sour taste of blood permeating the foreign, unadulterated air of the Forest of Death was a close second.

But I did not pay any heed to those signs; I did not even spare to the one who caused this, looking instead to forlorn faces of my team, terror radiating from their shattered expressions and misty, fractured eyes.

"Shigure!" Someone yelled from behind, a sign of clear danger, but he forgot me completely as I turned around, racing instead to the crumpled corpses to my left. His team.

"They are dead." Gaara iterated, arms crossed and sand beginning to shuffle. The last of our initial assailants, bearing the insignia of Hidden Rain, seemed not to care, down on all fours, muttering to his teammates, shaking them; for naught.

Specks of yellow began to coalesce around him, and my brain resumed its functioning, making me aware that my breathing had stopped and my hands were painfully clenched. I tried to calm my throbbing heart, but was unable to use any kind of meditation.

Forcing myself to breath, I tried to find my voice, to signal my friends, but their eyes were transfixed on the spectacle occurring. It was morbid. There was to be no curiosity about what was to happen. Yet they couldn't look away, and nor did I look myself, unable to shift our vision.

"No! Please! I surrender, I-"

He was going to kill him, someone was going to be killed, _I_ could not possibly bear to watch-

 _A red sky; puddles of white blood, clouds on earth, splattering the streets, the walls, the gutters, the windows._

-red tainted sand. Belatedly, I realized someone was screaming.

Naruto charged towards Gaara, who moved not a single inch. Jolted by the sight, I sprang into action, sprinting over the grass and latched onto his jacket, throwing him back.

"Why? Why did you kill him?!" The blond screamed, vitriolic blue meeting unfazed turquoise. Gaara's siblings were perpetually tensed, but made no moves.

"Why? I exist to kill others." I failed to hide my shiver at his dull, apathetic voice.

" _Are you fucking kidding me_?" Naruto's wounded tone rose even further and I struggled to hold his jacket, nails burning as he dragged himself forward. "That is shittiest thing I've heard in my _entire_ life!"

Red chakra began to engulf his network, sharpening his canines and nails. Frightening and fascinating, the Tailed Beast within began to stir at last. Wincing, I released my grip as tendrils of red chakra burned my skin.

It wasn't something that could be afforded. The Kazekage's youngest son had his interest piqued, and a deranged grin spread across his face.

"You're a monster too?"

Naruto roared. _Oh shit._ I snapped to Sakura, knowing he was beyond reason. "Take the high ground, provide long range support."

She looked paler, her lips trembling and her dilated pupils making her seem haunted. I wondered if my own visage was faring any better. "Sakura, now!"

Flinching, the kunoichi nodded imperceptibly and jumped up. My mind began to whir as the battle that should have been avoided became inevitable. We had no scroll, and nothing short of killing this team would ensure that we survived within the forest.

Naruto charged head, clawed fist cannoning the wall of sand that rose such that it left cracks, to the Gaara's gleeful surprise.

"I'll relish killing you. Show me your power!"

Naruto snarled, launching himself forward and wildly landed hits that left his knuckles bleeding. Even as the sandy defence reformed, he moved forward inch by inch, hand steaming as they healed and re-healed.

Slinking past the single-minded teammate and the avid Sand Jinchuuriki, I readied my shuriken. The easy way was to separate Gaara from his sand enough to neutralize him, but I was not as fast or strong as a jounin to kick him away, never mind risk of trapping a limb and in that weapon.

Watching as Naruto made shadow clones and approached Gaara from all directions, on four limbs instead of two, the sand raised from behind the red-haired genin, covering him a circular wall.

Leaping off a tree, I tossed three shurikens to his left, the sand rising to defend immediately. Landing on a branch, I waited for a single breath. Sakura did not disappoint and a volley of fairly aimed weapons arrived to Gaara's right, the sand rising further on both sides to shield him.

Jumping off once more, I threw more shurikens at the top of his head. In position, the sand moved to cover its wielder in a dome. "Naruto!" I yelled, flipping through a reduced number of seals, I fired off the Grand Fireball Jutsu mid-air, using to partly cushion my descent against gravity.

Sand has a very low specific heat capacity. In laymen terms, it conducts and dissipates heat superbly. Flipping backwards I cut off the jutsu but held my chakra, blowing it up once more as I ran a circle around the dome of sand, burning more chakra than wise.

The next moment, Gaara screamed from within and appendages made of sand lashed out towards, one straight into my chest and sent me flying. It swung around again, and I forced my protesting body to move, spitting out red-tainted saliva and jumping out of the way a by nary a centimetre.

In the centre stood a livid Jinchuuriki, sand crumbling off his angry red skin. Naruto, looking less feral, made shadow clones once more and charged, absolutely heedless of the pain as the scathing sand moved with plasticity unlike before.

I slipped in among the crowd of orange unhindered, our teamwork flaring even in his rage, and took aim.

With a burst of chakra I broke inside Gaara's guard, slicing through the sash that held his gourd. Seeing it slide down, I initiated the Primary Lotus. Hot sand moved immediately, wrapping around my ankle before whipping me away from its wielder into a tree, dispelling a few stray clones that came into the contact with my sailing body.

Wincing, I sprang back up, only to be viciously slapped by more sands tentacles that sent me rolling into another tree.

 _Maybe- no, ouch, definitely broke a rib or two there._ I winced as I gingerly withdrew my hand from my right side. Spitting out blood, I did the smarter thing and jumped up a tree and into the foliage this time. My plan had failed spectacularly, and now we had a pissed off Jinchuuriki with the only way to win being finding a scroll and getting the hell out of Dodge.

Considering all possibilities as I checked the injuries on my temple and left limbs from the sand, I could open the one scroll we did have and escape with the lives of our teammates. The trees behind me rustled and I cursed my lapse in attention. The mistake proved not to be fatal as Sakura emerged.

"Are you okay, Sasuke-kun?"

I titled my head, letting a drop of blood slide off it. "Why, of course I am, absolutely fine and dandy." Her jaw dropped a bit at my attitude which, for once, was _my_ attitude, not a computation of Sasuke's.

"Okay, stupid question." Sakura frowned worriedly. "But I think we can get a scroll."

Following her pointed finger, I found the stains of blood that used to be living human beings, pulverised within their clothes. That still held all their equipment and pouches. With a frown of my own, I met Sakura's eyes, both of us knowing it was all up to Lady Luck at best.

Naruto was still engaging Gaara, who seemed to enjoy destroying his clones in gruesome ways, squeezing them in sand, impaling him in vital organs, shoving it inside his red, slit irises and down his mouth... I shuddered. He would have one hell of a set of memories once he got his self back.

"I'll go, transformed as Naruto, while you keep an eye in case I get into trouble, okay?"

I opened my mouth to respond, holding up a finger, before halting. Gone was the girl who might have enjoyed the idea of being a damsel in distress while I watched her back, in her places someone more frightened than she had ever been in her life, and more brave than I tended to be stupid.

Nodding, I slid a set of kunai into my hands. Sakura took a deep breath, before forming a Ram seal and transforming into a copy of Naruto, eyes red, but not so animalistic.

She leapt silently, easily mixing into the crowd of Naruto clones and nearly ran into one at her hurried pace, who looked at her, blinked, before jumping into the front. Probably where the original 'boss' was, attacking head on per habit, while I kept rotating my vision between Sakura, Gaara, and his unmoving siblings.

Cursing as the siblings seemed to notice a stray Naruto as he separated from the hoard of orange towards where the latest victims of Sand Jinchuuriki lay, Temari and Kankuro made to move.

Until Gaara noticed their movement, and a wave of sand blocked their path.

" _Mine. He is all MINE!"_ He shouted, literally possessed. "No one else will touch him!"

Sakura paid no attention the outburst except the initial shock, before capitulating on the opportunity and, simply grabbing battered pouches as a whole, jumped back into the trees, so fast that I thought it might have been a body flicker.

And then I saw a small trail of water marking her trail and felt my cheeks burn, not from exhaustion but something else entirely. God, had she been _that_ terrified?

Before the redhead in the clearing could make head or tails of what happened, Naruto clones brandished explosive tags and the battle reached the peak of its commotion.

To my surprise, a minute later, both Naruto and Sakura reached me, the pink-haired girl grinning brightly while holding a bent, but not quite destroyed, earth scroll.

Naruto nursed his hands a bit tenderly, his eyes blue and his expression back to normal. His face was shadowed, looking like he wished he could teleport out of here and be somewhere alone.

"So, the gamble played off. Naruto," The blond flinched, refusing to meet my eyes. "Good work. We need to escape."

He looked at me then, chewing his lip. "I'm sorry."

I raised a single brow. "What for?"

"Just..."

I snorted. "Save it for later. Right now, we need a distraction, and you need to be it."

"Huh?"

"We need to be escaping, straight to the tower."

Looking at Sakura, and the scroll in her hand, Naruto blinked rapidly. "When did you get that?"

Sakura glared back, miffed. "I showed it to you just seconds ago, idiot."

"Children, please do not argue over whose Ninja Ranger is better." I muttered. Noticing they had heard, I allowed myself a small smirk. "Come on Naruto, we need your clones."

"I uh...I don't think can make them anymore." Noticing the way he seemed exhausted, and the fact that his knuckles were not healing themselves, I internally cursed.

The damn fox was deliberately holding back his chakra, and Naruto had seemed to run out of his own. Naruto twitched, and I looked back to see that all of his clones had been dispelled, leaving behind a Gaara with a very blank look on his face.

Taking a deep breath, I focused on the objectives. Perhaps it was the surrealism surrounding the situation, but even with the threat to life and my wild heart, I could keep my mind straight. Or maybe I was used to adrenaline rushes prior to The Fall (what I had taken to calling the moment in time when I arrived into this dimension).

 _Obtain scroll: Completed._

 _Escape: Incomplete._

 _Proceed to tower: Incomplete._

A scared teammate, an exhausted and injured one, and my own, admittedly pathetic, self were at hand. I could force them to go ahead while I covered for them, but I was barely a match for Kankuro at the moment, let alone Gaara.

Oh, there were techniques I had worked hard and fast to start learning, my training being more than the mere assimilation of years of this body's muscle memory. None that I could use after burning all the chakra I could manage in the longest Fireball Technique I had displayed earlier, which meant I had to get creative, with Naruto being down and all...

"Naruto, I need your cup ramen."

"What?"

"You heard me. And I need you to find the biggest, worst animal you can find and lead them here."

"Oi, how am I gonna survive?"

"Well, I-Wont-Die-Until-I'm-Hokage-san, that part is your problem. I trust you can do it, while we distract and keep them here. I get the feeling the red-haired boy has kept most of the wildlife scared, so find something good."

There was a giant snake out there that had yet to make friends with the blond prankster. His blue eyes lit up at the mention of his dream, and he nodded. He was the most resilient, not to mention the sneakiest person we had. Only he could do it.

But before he could leap away, I grabbed his shoulder, motioning with the my other, empty hand.

Hesitantly, Naruto handed me a cup from within his jacket and I shook it, making sure it wasn't empty. You could never expect Naruto to be forthcoming with his ramen.

"Thanks. Sakura, how many clones can you make of us?"

"At least three sets. Where are you going with this, Sasuke-kun?"

Looking at their puzzled, grim faces, I smiled wide. "Don't worry. Sakura, make your clones and send them across from the redhead."

"If you say so..."

The pink haired girl flipped through the required seals and did just that, transforming into our appearances when it came to making our clones. Mechanically, they sprinted through the trunks and leaped into the clearing in various directions, all moving in the same form, not that Gaara cared.

Sand lashed at all of them, only for them to continue their scripted movements and disappear again, like holograms. Naruto took the moment to vanish.

Gaara gritted his teeth. "Search for them!" He ordered his siblings, voice hoarse. I smiled wide, making my own set of clones, forgoing the process of transforming in order to project the appearance I had in mind for them. (The fusion technique came from an Uchiha scroll, one of the few I had access to.)

And that was how, the team from Sand found their selves facing a gender bent version of themselves. I stifled a giggle. I had taken extra care to make Gaara, shall we say, voluptuous.

He stared at the image, while the female Kankuro beside him, with a much more form-fitting black body suit tried to adopt the seductive mannerisms of a cat, and the male Temari acted out Power Ranger poses.

I resisted urge to cackle. I was a genius.

Then the lull in battle was interrupted when a wave of sand came crashing over the trio born of fan-art and the vivid imagination of an anime fan fond of sketching. It was too late that I noticed a floating eyeball behind Sakura.

My internal laughter died as I grabbed my teammate, evading a claw made of sand by a few inches as it tore through the tree. Letting her go, I fired off a trio of shuriken which arced towards the Jinchuuriki with deadly accuracy. Moments later, shuriken of sand met their charge with a twang.

Not waiting, taking advantages of the logs being created by the shattered tree as the appendage made of sand swung around the trees, I quickly used Substitution to land beside Sakura on the ground.

"Where is he? Where is your monster?" Gaara asked, his face a mask of rage.

"You know, you could learn a thing or two from our 'monster'. He has a name and it is Naruto," I replied instead. Is fear like the cold, such that when felt in enough excess, it starts to provide the opposite stimulus, such as warmth?

"Oh, is that so?" Sand began creeping towards us, slithering through the grass. Sakura clenched her kunai in front of her, and her questioning gaze on me.

"Do you know why Naruto exists?" I offered, causing him to cock his head, expression showing a hint of curiosity. The sand never stopped moving towards us, and I tried to suppress the shiver down my back.

"Why?"

In response, I took out the cup ramen I had copped from him. "Because of this."

"Sasuke-kun, what are you _doing_?!"

Gaara blinked. Kankuro and Temari look amazed, as if they were awed, or considering me to be the biggest idiot they had ever had the chance to meet.

"What is that object?"

"Well, you'll have to wait three minutes if you want to find out." I took out my canteen and lifted the lid, pouring the water in. My next trick involved using one of the many logs scattered around the area, made by onslaught of sand against the trees, to substitute behind a few feet behind Gaara.

"Some call it food of the gods," I used another replacement to dodge the sand, the technique much too fast and instant for the ultimate defence/offense to keep up with. "Some call it 'this will show right on my stomach'," (I could imagine Sakura spluttering in the distance.)

Another replacement and I was in front of Kankuro and Temari, clearly conflicted on whether to engage another one of Gaara's prey or not. "But the most appropriate term is, 'you haven't lived if you haven't had ramen'."

The original statement had the word Ichiraku in there somewhere, but I don't think with the protruding veins on his face, the Suna Jinchuuriki would have cared. "It matters not. I shall prove my existence by killing. I don't need to have this 'ramen' to exist!"

"Hm, did you say something?" I looked up from the watching the ramen cook (perhaps Kakashi-sensei was rubbing off on me more than I would admit).

Sand moved, grasping me in millions of itchy granules. I floundered momentarily when it circled around me torso and interrupted my breathing.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cried out, several meters above. The kunai she threw were useless, but her presence snapped me back.

The sand surrounded me entirely, filling my mouth and nose. It was dark and stifling, but I knew my next move. Chakra was energy, and was not hindered by any material obstacles unless converted to elements. At least, it worked when one needed to substitute from land to underwater.

Gaara crushed his fist in a manic anticipation, only for the sand to compress and fall, not a single drop of blood to be seen. The only prize it had to offer was a battered polystyrene cup, uncooked noodles in lukewarm miso broth.

 _For an unbeatable defence/offense, I'm finding a lot of flaws in it._

"Y-Yo." I managed, falling next to Sakura. She stared in shock as I took in ragged breaths. Then the sand in the clearing levelled further and we could make out the splintered log I had substituted myself. One in a series of many, before I had body flickered to my teammate's position.

(With how frequently Kakashi-sensei disappeared in front of my Sharingan eyes, it was only a matter of time until I learned it.)

But I was swaying and felt nauseated now, the signs showing the setting in of chakra exhaustion. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I waved it off, much too used to it from self-training.

Before I could manage to say anything, a flash of blond hair dropped onto the branch above us as well, grimy and cut in all sorts of places, panting harshly.

"Where's your jacket Naruto?" Sakura asked, before a snake crashed into the battle ground, tongue flickering. Its left eye was pressed close, and when it flicked its tongue out, I spotted orange fabric stuck midway along its length.

 _But snakes don't even chew- but it would have had tried to take a bite- how did this idiot even manage that?!_

Uzumaki Naruto, truly the most unpredictable ninja of the Leaf, nay, the world.

The gargantuan animal spotted the Suna team, and subtly shifted its posture, diamond scaled body pointed towards them.

"Let's run, _now_." I hissed, getting up against the protests of my body.

"Eleven o'clock towards the tower, Sasuke-kun." Sakura supplied. Grabbing her arm and Naruto's, I trained my eyes on the best displacement I could find, before using the last dregs of my chakra for one final body-flicker.

The time it took them to reorient themselves gave me enough seconds to heave dryly, gather my bearings and as one we leapt for tree after tree.

Then I off-timed and slipped when my Sharingan flickered off, was caught and pulled by up Sakura, before shaking my arm off from her grasp. It was only then I noticed that I did not even have enough chakra to leap more than a few meters.

I might have initially gotten them out of trouble, but now I was slowing them down. My joints felt stiff and each time I bent knees my calves and thighs flared in pain. It took effort to grab and release branches with my hands, my fingers losing falling prey to inertia increasingly.

 _Damn it._ I soldiered on. Were we to be dragged into another confrontation with anyone, anything, we were goners. _We need rest._

It wasn't even afternoon yet, and I slowed down periodically, until we stopped and finally took some cover. No one complained, and Sakura went about setting traps.

"Weren't there a lot of animal sounds around here?" Naruto took a swig from his canteen, sloshing it around his mouth before swallowing.

"Yes. Once we settle in, they'll adjust to us. If someone else approaches, they'll quiet down again. That'll be our warning system." I replied, rubbing my limbs and stretching.

"Oh. Smart." He muttered. Sakura came back after a sparse twenty minutes. Soon we settled in a triangle with our backs to each other, eating our ration bars, but I did not calm until the chirping and hissing and other small noises began again.

"So, where'd you find the snake?" I asked.

"Oh, it came after me itself. It climbs fast as hell, but it wasn't so smart. Got it tied up chasing after me."

"And how did you jacket end up there?" I laid the real question of the metaphorical table. Naruto, paused, gave me his shit-eating grin reserved only for members of the Uchiha clan.

"That's a trade secret."

"I can't go a single day without wanting to punch you in the face."

"Hey, that's my line. What'd you do with my ramen?"

"The redhead's mum ate it. Saved my life though."

"...you're just fucking with me now."

"Sorry, it was the taken by the demon pretending to be his mother."

Naruto turned pale. I felt like kicking myself for the faux pas.

"What happened back there?" Sakura finally spoke. "What happened to you Naruto? With that monster back there...you were throwing around so much intent to kill as well..."

"Oh, that is, I uh, I... I didn't mean to, er..." I sighed. Was I supposed to dance around under some assumption that this was his secret to tell, until he had calmed after torturing his own self with awkwardness and solitude, so one day we could congratulate him for being so brave to share with us?

"Save our lives? Kick his ass? Heh, that boy doesn't know what a monster is." I cut through the blonde's yammering, stealing the attention away. "Do you know how my clan ended?"

Seeing the inquisitive glances, I continued without prompting. "A single person killed them all. He killed his own uncles, aunts, cousins, elders, acquaintances, people who looked up to him, who admired him, loved him...his own parents..." The last admission came out in a whisper.

"That's what a monster is like, Naruto. Not you; you could never be." I turned to meet startled blue eyes, shocked myself at the tears swirling in them. "Even him, how badly do you have to be hurt, to decide that the reason you live is to kill others?"

"You, you...you're not supposed to be like, like whatever this is, you bastard." Naruto's sniffled, breathe hitching. "Damn it, I'm not crying! A drop of sweat fell into my eyes."

"Uhh, I hate to be rude, but just what exactly is going on?" Sakura asked, looking between us. I sighed.

I could tell her, since technically we were not supposed to know that there was even a law in place to not reveal Naruto's Jinchuuriki status, and in a history book that I read was the event of the First Hokage distributing Tailed Beasts as war deterrents, coupled with the fact that his wife, Uzumaki Mito, was a Jinchuuriki.

Of course, the books simply told that Hashirama defeated the Kyuubi and Madara, not that Mito sealed it inside herself as I knew from anime canon.

"I have the Kyuubi sealed inside of me."

I faltered in my incomplete thoughts. To speak of revealing the greatest of all tailed beasts inside of you in the same tone as if you were coming out of the closet, damn it Naruto.

Sakura blanched. " _What?_ "

"Like, tailed beasts can't be killed. But people can seal 'em. And the Yondaime was amazing at Fuinjutsu, so he sealed it inside me."

"Let's say it is true...why you?" Sakura retorted, trying to regain her pallor with fake courage.

"Well, I'm an orphan. Can you imagine him asking anyone for their baby to seal fox destroying the village in him or her?"

"Well...is it safe?" The pink-haired girl asked, trying to lean towards me while not being obvious about it.

"Of course it is. You trust the Yondaime at least, don't you?" Naruto smiled, forced.

"Well, it certainly explains a lot of things. I knew you bring out the worst in people, but now I know why we tend to be ignored if you're walking with us."

"Oh, that, people like to pretend I don't exist, Sakura-chan." Naruto ruffled his hair, trying to smile. "But it's nothing! They can't pretend there is no Uzumaki Naruto when I become the Hokage."

"Right. At least now I know why some people look sad, angry, or blatantly oblivious all of a sudden when you're around." Sakura muttered. "I do feel kind of sorry."

"For the Kyuubi I mean." We turned our heads at this. "What? It's _Naruto_. Forcing, even the Kyuubi, to spend the rest of its life with Naruto of all people?"

 _I think we've corrupted her. Isn't today full of surprises?  
_

"It does seem a bit much. All it did was try to destroy the village." I nodded sagely, quickly realizing the joke. As far as shinobi humour went, this wasn't even dark.

"You guys are the fucking worst!" Naruto tried to be indignant, but the smile on his face ruined the effect. "Here I was, thinking you'd start looking at me with the cold look everyone else who knows gives me, and what do I get? Sympathy, but for asshole fox? Unbelievable."

"What's unbelievable is how your jacket ended up midway on the tongue of a snake."

"...I'm still not telling you that. And even more unbeliveable is how you're being. You actually smiled. Don't you do that when puppy dies or something?"

"You weren't around when Sasuke-kun decided to distract our enemies." Sakura rubbed her arms, shaking her head sideways. Could the fem!Gaara have traumatized her?

"Oi, how did you distract him?" Naruto asked, faced scrunched into a foxy expression. I gave a half-smile back.

"That's a trade secret."

The atmosphere considerably better, we finally relaxed. But even the morning of the second day was not over. Picking ourselves up, we continued towards the tower one. But from the glances Sakura kept giving Naruto, the way her own shoulders remained drooping, I could tell what had occurred had shaken her the most.

The blond himself kept glancing at us. The issue had been brought up, but not in a place where we could discuss. That'd have to wait until we reached the tower.

If we reached the tower.

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Review? Perhaps read my other Naruto fic centred in Ame, so I can also feel motivated to write that? :P


	9. Chapter 9

Been a while! Thanks to Silimaira for some ideas used in this chapter, and smilingseshat, you got your wish! At some places I wondered where the heck this fic was going, but then I realized, it's stress relief! Stop stressing too damn much over it :P

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 **¬.¬**

 **Chapter 9: Lion meets Dragon, and Boy meets Girl.**

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" _Only one skill did I learn, throughout my life,_

 _Whomsoever I met, I disappointed_."

~Jaun Elia

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But the second day was not over. Although the emergency genin bars helped, bolstered with caffeine and a bit of soldier pill ingredients (a gram per every hundred grams roughly), we were not in any condition to fight again. My left arm and Naruto's knuckles had to be bandaged while I only disinfected the wound on my forehead, leaving it exposed to the air for faster healing.

I leaped over another branch, stopped, crept on my toes around the trunk of a tree, climbed upwards with no chakra while bracing my broken ribs, and leaped again, following the path that Naruto was tracing.

It was now understandable how the orange-clad Jinchuuriki was so easy to lose sight of for short moments; without his jacket, which I had come to associate with him like one did the sun with day and the stars with night, I had to take an effort to remove the bias from my mind.

This effect was also employed by one gentleman thief, clad in stark white against the darkness of the nights of his heists, come to think of it.

Furthermore, despite being able to climb up and down as shinobi, we tended to scan sideways first; Naruto used those precious seconds (or second) to change the plane of his location. Even Sakura was looking momentarily impressed at some point in time.

Pausing at Naruto's signal – a raised fist- we let him climb up the tree to scout further. Seconds later he clambered down. "Good news guys, I can see the tower. Couldn't have been an hour away if we were top shape, believe it."

And that was when we all felt it. 'Twas killing intent, coming from multiple places. Sharingan whirring to life, I scanned the forest and the various snakes that had their eyes on us, all of them enlarged versions of lither, more venomous snakes. On the trees, on the ground, one or two were hanging watching from above.

 _Buggerations._

Regardless of whether these were summons or not of You-Know-Who, even normal animals in this hellhole gave off intent to kill.

Naruto made half dozen clones without prompting and they lunged at the reptiles, four of them sacrificing themselves in the collective strike unleashed by the snakes while burying a kunai in their diamond-shaped skulls.

"Huh." I mouthed, surprised that shadow clones actually completed an attack without us jumping in first. Or maybe Naruto was unusually skilled with snakes.

Perhaps I jinxed us with that thought, for it followed a magnanimous gale of wind which cut through tree trunks and uprooted out formation, sending us all away from each other.

"Oh, in the name of great grandpa Madara-sama, _no_ ," While I tried to kid myself, I very much resisted the urge to urinate all over myself as death walked into view, bearing a Grass symbol.

There was so much that had been changed, that I did not feel secure at all in the 10% chance of survival of the Curse Seal.

 _I am going to die._ As if all the fear I should have been feeling long ago had been rising up in a dam, broke through and flooded my mind. _I am going to die and I can't even make a pun._

I wasn't all that brave a person. I didn't raise my voice my voice in dissent or fought for some sort of ideals, unless my mouth left my mind behind. Just like how my body found it sane to go jumping and skidding across railings and rooftops before I got into this world.

Much of the selfless deeds people did revolve around the logic that _'tis what anyone would have done_ , and anyone would not fight Orochimaru if they knew what they were up against.

I went for the sanest action and reached for my emergency flares. A pale hand reached out and crushed the tubes before any sparks could take to the air.

"Kukuku...it seems I underestimated you. Are you a sensor?" He was suppressing his chakra, but this close, it felt like the waves of ocean. Slow, deliberate and powerfu

I caught his(her?) punch without thinking, following up with a fast, _fast_ exchange of blows before I kicked off his stomach and put some distance between us.

"Interesting...most interesting. The Uchiha were a proud clan. You wear their symbol on your back for the world you see, yet you hide your eyes..."

I stared on shocked. "How?"

"Plain cosmetic lenses don't adjust to your pupil dilating and contracting." He smirked. "Take note for the future. A shoddy disguise spells a ninja's demise."

I clamped down on my panic, something I had been developing a good skill for nowadays. Knowing the Sannin's penchant for theatrics, I reached into my pouch and soaked my fingers in saline solution, before removing my lenses in one swift motion.

I may or may not have practiced this.

(All hail Lelouch.)

"Fascinating," Orochimaru commented, taking his stance. At once his oppressive chakra saturated the air, smothering my senses until all I could feel was fear, fear and fear.

I gritted my teeth. I knew this day would come. Inadvertently, all the time I had to act as the loner Sasuke was also the time I spent training. Letting chakra course through my body, I steeled my resolve, biting down on my tongue to let the pain dispel his hold over me.

Naruto would survive. He was no doubt stronger than me. It was Sakura I worried about, tired as she was and separated from us.

A hundred seconds, I could probably manage at full power. The snake Sannin wanted a show? He would get a goddamn show. I took one Sisyphean step, then another.

"Kukuku, for you to break through this much killing intent...truly a member of the Uchiha clan."

I rushed forward, faster than ever before, and launched a furious strike that caught him in the left shoulder. The enemy grinned, before I pushed off on my toes and rammed the steel plate of my hitai-ate into his nose.

This was followed by a blow to solar plexus, a palm strike to the sternum and roundhouse kick to the jaw in quick succession, which was caught and he brought down his elbow hard on my leg.

I screamed, twisted and brought my other leg around which was also blocked. I rotated my torso, forming seals while spinning my on my axis horizontal the ground, but he instantly bashed me away with a kick.

I bounced across the grass once, rolled and tossed a bunch of shuriken to nullify another barrage heading my way, before I sensed chakra behind me and swept my leg out, in an ideal position for the Leaf Whirlwind.

Instead the ground rose from beneath my leg, pulling my hamstrings upward as an earth wall rose. Trust Orochimaru to use a defensive move offensively.

Pulling out my kunai, I tossed them after the Sannin, throwing one with an explosive tag towards him. And then I surprised him, when I teleported to him instead, the wire in my hand severing the tag from the projectile. I slapped the tag onto his torso before substituting the hell out of his proximity as it exploded.

The ground fissured as something drilled through and the next moment I was airborne. The battle shifted to the trees, I barely managed to dodge a jet of flame, weaving up and down the branches while launching two wired shuriken that curved away from each other, giving room to my opponent in the middle. Crossing my arms, I sprinting diagonally, below and then above Orochimaru, before pulling my arms and catching his neck in between while casting a minor genjutsu to make up seem down and down seem up, unnoticeable from our vantage.

Smirking, he elongated his neck, causing me to blanch. In panic I slapped my hands into the tiger seal and unleashed a fireball point blank. Through the smoke and smell of cooked meat, grotesquely appetizing, I was kneed in the stomach, before a blow to my cranium sent me hurtling towards the ground.

I wheezed as I fell into a plank, before a pair of feet smashed between my shoulder blades. I bunched blades of grass in my hand before letting out a howl.

"Is that all you have?" Orochimaru asked in the most infuriating tone I had ever heard, after the most painful beating I had ever the received. It had begun innocently enough; my descent into darkness. Ignoring my heavy eyelids, hyperventilation and the general signs of my body succumbing to chakra exhaustion, I went:

"Is... is your neck the only thing...you can e-elongate with that jutsu?" I made a quip worthy of Jiraya. It had the intended effect because moments later I was on the end of a furious exchange of blows. Maybe I had reminded the old sod of his perverted teammate.

I could see. I could see his blows, intuit his fluid pattern that seemed like drunken martial arts, but graceful. I could also see my body had no way of keeping up with this, as I slid closer and closer to the edge.

" _Sasuke-kun!_ " Sakura's voice rang in my ears as I blinked some flashing spots in my vision from a painful blow to the temple, which had filled my mouth with blood.

Whipping my head, I saw her, clutching an arm weakly, the red of her dress diffused with a darker stain. I made to move, only to be kicked further away.

"No distractions." Orochimaru teased. "We're not finished yet."

"You're in my way." I spoke, tone frigid.

"Come now, she is not going anywhere." At the end of his sentence he let a kunai fly as I watched helplessly, straight towards her. Out of kunai, rational thoughts and time to think, I broke past all my limits.

* * *

Orochimaru stared dispassionately as he let the kunai fly towards the pink-haired mouse, trying neither to kill her nor spare her. The next moment the Uchiha was running for her.

Clearly, the Leaf shinobi were idiots when it came to profiling him, or any other matter. Thank God for Kabuto.

Unveiling the Grass-Cutter at last, he extended his neck to intercept the boy when he dodged a moment too soon, pushing off with chakra straight into his kunai.

 _Fuck._ Thought Orochimaru, staring at his prize, for he would have those eyes one day, now fully matured and now losing light.

"HEY! YOU BASTARD!" The Jinchuuriki was on the scene, bursting out of the trees at the same time as Kabuto. Orochimaru met his eyes, every bit baleful like a respectful Leaf ninja whose comrade had been downed. Only paying half attention to the blond and his multiple clones now attacking him, the Sannin watched as Kabuto began to subtly knock the girl out with a genjutsu, before healing the foolish Uchiha.

Ah, what would he do without Kabuto? Staring form behind his half melted mask, Orochimaru unleashed his killer intent on the blond.

"Who the hell are you?" The Kyuubi container, Minato's son asked, shaking but resilient.

"Me? Why should I tell you?" He smirked. Something seemed to click inside the blonde's head.

"Well I am Uzumaki Naruto, and I am going to kick your ass, believe it! You think you can just hurt my friends and get away with it? _Shadow Clone Jutsu_!"

Did this boy know nothing else? But a Jinchuuriki was a Jinchuuriki, and after toying with him, he nipped one potential headache in the bud, applying the Five Element Seal on him.

* * *

I came to with a jerk, muttering in English, " _No...No..._ " as the face over me cleared, a Yakushi Kabuto who deserved an Oscar for his stricken look. And then it occurred to me what had just happened. To my side lay Sakura, bleeding out and unconscious.

"Heal her." I tried to order with characteristic Uchiha arrogance, but it came out as a plea. Kabuto began stuttering. Naruto was going against Orochimaru and I hurt too damn much everywhere to even think of movement. I had faith in him, but still I pushed myself up.

"What are you talking about?"

"Please. I will not tell anyone." I ran a hand over my ribs, where a kunai had to have been lodged moments ago. The damage only felt like a surface wound.

"I am sorry, but I can't-"

"Then just pray or something while I back Naruto

Not bothering with his response, I walked up to Orochimaru, now as his true self. Naruto stopped his charging, and words filled the lull in battle.

"Kukuku...very impressive. To be able to use your Sharingan so much at this age, your eyes hold much more potential than Uchiha Itachi's."

Oh, so he had finally gotten his fill. Unintentionally killing me must have done the trick. Without warning, he moved. I could track his movement, in fact better than before but even as jumped backwards he followed, neck lengthening and canines turning into fangs and oh, _hell_ _n-_

"AAARGH!" Clutching my neck, I fell to my knees.

"If you want to meet me again, climb to the top of this test."

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried. "Damn it, why can't I use my chakra?" Oh, that had also happened. _Tough luck, now he has to wait for Jiraya_ was my last thought before it felt like my neck were being injected with molten lava and I passed out.

* * *

I came to on the surface of a bed, hurting all over, throat parched and feeling clammy.

"Oi, Sasuke, you're awake!" Naruto yelled and I instantly shut my eyes from the volume. "Oh, sorry, we're at the tower now. Kabuto carried you while I carried Sakura, she's alright too by the way, woke up before you and has gone to eat something now, but anyway, we passed!"

All the while he was making three cups of ramen, and handed my water canteen which I chugged down. I could use some painkillers at the moment, or something else to clear my head because the more Naruto talked, the more anger I felt.

Feeling my chakra within me, I could sense another current flowing alongside it, and it pricked my skin in an unpleasant way. Didn't the curse seal modify nature chakra to bolster the user or something?

My emotional turbulence reached a peak when Naruto handed me a cup of ramen, but I was already feeling hot and stuffy, and the cup was steaming. My solution was to knock it out of his hands and send it across the room.

"Oh, what the fu-"

" _Naruto._ " I clutched my neck, grimacing, forgetting all Uchiha propriety. " _Where is sensei?"_

Sensing something wrong, Naruto exhaled dejectedly. "I asked for him but until the exam is over, we can't see him or a medic unless you want to drop out."

Drop out? Huh, why not go and simply ask them to give a little help. That shouldn't be too much on them. That sounded like a good idea. What a fucking good idea! And if they resist, I can just smash their fucking faces in because clearly, I am in need of help and they-

"SASUKE! SNAP OUT OF IT!"

And Naruto is saying something stupid again, that moron, why should I have to listen to him. I winced as the door to the room opened with a bang, who the fuck is making that much noise, I ought to-

Rubbing my neck, I couldn't care who it was. I probably wouldn't even be able to put a finger on it anyway. And then power flooded my body, washing away all the pains and soothing every ache.

"Sasuke-kun!" Oh, it was Sakura. She survived. Surviving meant she came close to dying... Wait a minute, didn't I also nearly die? "Sasuke-kun, come back!"

A small part of me began screaming to within to regain my senses as I swung my legs off the bed and began to walk ominously towards the pink haired girl. I could feel the slithering curse beginning to halt, finally being impeded.

Oh, the cursed seal! That's what I had to be worried about. Now aware of it, the power it provided was delicious, like ice cold water after journey through an arid desert.

"You..." I towered over Sakura, as she crouched before me, afraid but unwilling to leave. I poked her forehead harshly, "Why are you so annoying? One moment you're doing fine and then suddenly, you forget how to throw shurikens in a triangle and need my help."

"Eh?!" She squeaked and I poked her again, this time steadier, but still painful. The dark chakra circulating my system began being pushed back. The only thing greater than my anger was the fear that I was surrounded only by me teammates, and I was inevitably going to fuck something up if this continued.

To distract myself, I poked Sakura's forehead again, because she was still there. "And you've got such a big head, but whatever half-assed answer or idea I come up, you think it's the next best thing after Einstein."

The seal painfully receded further, and I forgot what I was going to say next. Glaring, I poked her forehead again. "You worry me more than... the dead-last... sometimes."

Clenching my neck, I tore my gaze away from her, looking at a dumbstruck Naruto. The seal flared again, I pulled my chakra away from the tenketsu surrounding it, letting it build up, slow and steady while the black marks began to grow again. Once the pressure of my own chakra exceeded the seals', I let go and it surged, pushing the seal back entirely.

Vertigo struck and I fell to my knees, mouth open in a silent scream and saliva and sweat fell to the floor. I closed my eyes shut, my head throbbing as the feeling acidic burning in my chakra began anew.

"Sasuke-kun!"

"Oi, bastard!"

I slumped to the floor. A very cool hand touched my face.

"Naruto! He's burning up!" Soon I was back on the tubular bed with the white futon, and a few minutes later a cold wet cloth was placed on my forehead.

"Sakura," I whispered.

"What? What is it Sasuke-kun?" She whispered back quickly, leaning close to decipher what I had to say.

"Tell Naruto that I'm sorry..."

"Okay?"

"...for the ramen."

* * *

The next time I came to I was more coherent, sweaty, but my fever had broken. I could also move to reach for the water placed on the small table beside me. In one long swing I emptied half the canteen. My head was fuzzy; I couldn't quite remember what had happened.

My arms ached, my ribs felt a sharp pain if I tried to breathe deeply, and my left leg felt unsteady to hold my weight. My injuries were all bandaged although I could use a hot pack or some painkillers. I felt like I had been tossed around like ragdoll and then used as a punching bag. (First Gaara, then Orochimaru.)

I also felt extremely hungry and then noticed a large-sized cup of cold ramen standing next to the canteen. Better than nothing, I gobbled it down. Unlike actual ramen, the instant ones didn't go soggy after cooling down.

The room was empty, and I had no idea where the toilet was. Venturing out into the austere building the problem was solved in a few minutes before I ran into someone before my own team.

"Yosh! I am glad to see you up and about, Sasuke-san!" Rock Lee greeted. I simply held up a hand to the older genin.

"Yo. Seen my team, Lee-senpai?" Lee raised his eyebrows at the address, while I tried to act as nonchalant as possible. Even when his eyes started sparkling. Nodding, he replied,

"Sakura-san and Naruto-san are in one of the eastern rooms with other Leaf shinobi. Straight ahead after you exit the sick-bay, turn right."

"Thank you."

"See you later, kohai!" He flashed a grin and gave me thumbs up, before continuing on with his business. Beyond the point of giving a shit, I shrugged and went to find Team Seven.

Seeing a door with the leaf symbol, I opened it quietly to the chatter of multiple teams.

Sakura and Ino were bickering, Naruto was trying to use Shikamaru as an awkward shield against an agitated Kiba, Tenten was sitting next to Hinata sharpening a kunai, while Neji stood to the side, glaring at the roof.

I walked in and right next to the door stood Shino. I nodded to him, and he nodded back.

"I see you made it, Aburame Shino."

"So I did. I see you remember me. Why? Because I thought you were too absorbed in training to take note of the people around it, Uchiha Sasuke. I am surprised, more so because you remembered _me_."

"Ah, Sasuke-kun!" Ino shouted.

"Are you sure you want popularity and have to deal with that?"

"...No." Shino replied and I moved ahead to deal with the fan girl.

"Yamanaka-san." I replied formally and her eyes lit up. "Excuse me, I need to talk with Naruto and Sakura."

Ino looked like the world had come crashing down. I had addressed her by her family name, but her 'love-rival' by her given name, implying we were close but she was at best an acquaintance.

The room seemed to fall silent as I walked over to my team. "How much time has passed?"

"Three days. You slept for at total of eighteen hours. But it was normal! You showed lots of symptoms of chakra exhaustion, from what I could tell." Sakura informed me, fidgeting and slightly blushing. Had I done something? She wasn't usually like this. "You woke up many times, fighting _it_ , and then collapsed again."

I had no recall of that, but pain squeezed my flesh with every movement I pretended to make effortlessly. My gaze then travelled to her abdomen, and I could see the outline of bandages there. Then the memories of her, fatally injured and dying came to forefront of my mind and relief flooded me, seeing her alive. Looking like an injured wreck, pink hair irregularly shorn, but breathing and well.

 _I have to thank Kabuto someday, even with being the traitor that he is_.

Then I looked at Naruto, seeming so foreign without his jacket. Making no mention of my gratitude for the ramen, I asked "What happened after we were split?"

"Oh, that. We ran into another team from this weird Sound village..." Naruto proceeded to give summary of their battle, how Sakura was injured by Dosu and his lethal arm, then Shikamaru's team showed up and after the Sound team escaped they realized Sakura was missing.

I turned to her, and she mumbled something about hearing my cries and rushing over. Equal parts anger and worry washed over me.

 _Stupid twelve-year olds and their insane crushes!_

"Oi, don't glare at her bastard. She rushed over 'cause a teammate was alone, not 'cause she likes you or anything, believe it."

Oh. Was Naruto covering for her or was I really being that shallow? Sighing, I sat down on one of the wooden benches lining the room. Something must be wrong with me if I can get over the near-death of teammate so easily. Then again, canon Naruto would fling around Jutsus of Mass Destruction and still be a happy go lucky idiot with no one questioning his sanity.

He recounted the rest of his tale without waiting for my answer, of failing to help Kabuto finding his team, but making it to the tower. "You kept waking up in between, and Kabuto said you'd not really be able to remember stuff until we get you proper rest. So, what happened with you?"

"Ran into a 'genin' from Grass. She proceeded to kick the shit out of me worse than the first time you fought Kakashi-sensei. Then Sakura showed up."

"And then that weirdo bit your neck, giving you... _that._ "

I frowned and crossed my arms, a signal that had started out to keep Naruto from blabbing about the Sharingan, to anything we didn't want known in general. "Right."

* * *

We spent the remaining day recuperating, eating rationed bars and water the proctors provided for each genin, only enough to curb our hunger, not satiate it.

Soon the preliminaries came. No other team from Konoha made it to the end of the second stage. Kabuto had lost a teammate. Overall six teams had made it, three from Leaf, one from Sand, one from Sound. Our jounin were also present, and I made a point to make eye contact with Kakashi, signing the words 'medic' and 'seal' before letting my hand drop on my neck, to resting at my side.

My sixth sense was aware of Gaara's eyes on me, and I also knew the fact that Gaara had reached the tower on the last day. Did I trigger off a Jinchuuriki into actively searching and killing teams? I clenched my hands at the thought, appalled with myself; appalled that I was relieved at not remorseful.

A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to see Tenten of all people. "Do your best." She said. I merely raised an eyebrow in question, "Pardon?"

From the viewing area above, a loud voice emanated. "KA-KA-SHI! YOUR STUDENT IS HIP, JUST LIKE YOU!"

Ignoring the outburst like the hip and cool student I was, I turned to see the board and saw **Sasuke VS Tenten** written on it. Oh joy.

"Good luck to you too." I said, holding out my hand in the seal of confrontation, activating the now three tomoe Sharingan from behind my second pair of lenses.

The days of rest had allowed my chakra to be restored, even if my broken bones had not. But I was a shinobi now, although a reluctant one and no stranger to pain.

"Begin!" Gekko Hayate announced with a chop of his hand and stepped back. Tenten reached into her pouches and tossed eight shuriken at me. I watched them spin towards, and deflected the ones headed for my neck, knees and stomach with a kunai, letting the others sail past me.

I feinted to the right, sprinted left and swung my kunai in an arc to deflect another quartet of shurikens heading towards me. In Tenten's other hand was a small scroll which she unsealed in an instant.

I stared in shock as she parried my kunai with a diagonally-tipped tanto, with a follow up slash that severed the bangs which hung on the right side of my face as I leaned backwards.

Bent at the knees, I pulled on my abdominal muscles while gathering chakra. My ribs protested but I held it in, gnashing my teeth before letting a Fireball fly.

I stared at the burning, substituted log in front with a blank expression, as the cool blade of the kunoichi touched my neck.

"Not bad, rookie. Are we done with the warm up?"

That...was not a warm up for me. Nonetheless I smirked at the half-burnt log. "Let's get serious then."

* * *

"Did he just do what I think he did?" Kiba asked aloud, not believing what he was seeing.

"It has been a long while since I've seen someone his age perform a jutsu with no hand seals." Gai said to his Eternal Rival, while Kakashi watched his student with a narrowed eye. "The last time we had someone like that..." The Green beast of Konoha trailed off, but Kakashi knew what he was talking about.

"Maa, he is his brother after all." He spoke half to himself.

"You've raised one hell of a genin, Kakashi." Asuma chimed in. Kakashi closed his eye and smiled, even if it meant he couldn't see a bloody thing happening down in the arena.

"As if! He all he does is beat us up or read his book while we practice chakra." Naruto voiced his protest openly. Asuma seemed to take his statement with a bit of salt.

"Huh. Does he have his Sharingan yet?"

"Eh?!" Naruto faltered before Sakura took charge and elbowed him.

"He means the Uchiha bloodline limit. Honestly, it's like you lived all your life without anyone to tell you things, or under a rock." At Sakura's response, which may or may not have been a jab at the adults in the audience, if one observed closely enough, the jounin looked a bit uncomfortable.

But of course it was a jab, for the only way to pass time when the two were left alone with an unconscious teammate was to converse about many things, besides performing maintenance on their weapons. Things they hadn't known about a certain blond before.

All of a sudden everyone's eyes were on the arena again.

"Now where in the hell did he learn _that_ move?" Kiba groaned.

"That's what I want to know." Kakashi muttered, unmasking his left eye. He would not close it for the remainder of the battle. Moments later, Hyuga Neji, with his Byakugan activated, would think some very unsavoury words.

* * *

Tenten was, in one word, tough. Her accuracy was astounding, but a 95% hit rate was nothing special among skilled shinobi. Her tanto was not something she was above average with, but considering the amount of weapons she was average at, she was not average at all.

The tanto had a short reach, but she had yet to fail to not nick me whenever I landed a hit on her. As expected of Gai, her taijutsu was solid. At the end of our latest exchange she even managed to knee me in the kidney and then leaped backwards.

Taking out a single scroll, she unfurled it around her in a spiral, going round and round until three rows of Fuinjutsu kanji faced me.

"Release!" She yelled, and a blitz of kunai and senbon shot towards me like missiles, converging around me in a concave wall. I was painfully aware that jumping out of range was not an option, if I could even do it; the kunoichi was ambidextrous, a brilliant at multitasking, and had a hand free when the scroll was released.

 _This isn't a matter of dodging or not, this is a moment to live or to die!_

That left just one very risky resort. For you see, when I had begun training my chakra, I decided to see just how much precise I could be. Tree walking took just one evening, water walking a whole week, and then I moved onto experiments like climbing walls like Spiderman.

Before I knew it, I was practicing releasing chakra from five different tenketsu during warm-up and post-exercise stretches daily. Some I got down in one day like the hands, some in two or three, and some in week like the thighs, scapula etc-

I had been in this world for about six months. I became genin in January, and the current month was July. By now, many people can deduce what had happened, and just what I had managed to do. It was infuriatingly hard, and had earned more visits to the hospital than anything else during my personal training.

Releasing a small amount chakra from beneath my feet, and then another on top of that disconnect myself from the floor onto a frictionless plane between two layers of chakra, I crossed my right leg over the left, throwing my arms out.

"Let it rip!" I breathed out and spun, releasing chakra from every point possible and then pulled my arms in to increase my spin even further, until all I saw was a spinning wall of blue, blinding my Sharingan for a few seconds.

When the sound of metal hitting the floor stopped, I also ended the technique, the slowing speed of rotation and inhalation making it easier for chakra to re-enter the pathway streams and reducing chakra loss to the environment from my body.

Stopping, I saw myself facing the entrance. I still hadn't gotten the hang of facing the initial direction I had been facing when ending the Heavenly Rotation. Turning another 180 degrees, I felt absolutely giddy at Tenten's impersonation of a gobsmacked fish.

After using the technique of one of her team member's, I burst into action with the technique of another member of Team Gai, launching her into the air with a kick.

Grunting as the movement made my flanks flare in pain, I jumped positioned myself anti-parallel to her, capturing her wrists and pulling her arms flat across her belly whilst crossing my ankle over her collar to hold her straight as we gravity took effect.

But Tenten would not allow that. Mid-air she squirmed, bringing her knees to her chest in an effort to kick me in the jaw. Sharingan spinning in overdrive, I uncrossed my legs and released her arms, kicking her away with a roundhouse kick.

Then the explosive tag she had slapped onto my forearm protector ignited. Panicking, my nails scraped red lines across my arm as I tore off the ticking bomb. It exploded barely a feet from me.

The kunoichi landed with grace, albeit with a fierce grimace on her face with a wince as an afterthought. I slammed onto the floor, rolling away from a woman definitely scorned.

If only I could get rid of the ringing in my ears her tag had left me with. Was she talking to me? Rubbing my ear, I looked up to see her flushed and seething.

"Did you say something?" I asked a tad arrogantly.

Silence swept the arena. Kakashi could have sworn Gai mumbled something like _'His student is just as infuriating as Kakashi is sometimes.'_

"I," Tenten smiled sweetly as she took out a scroll, "am going to butcher your 'hip and cool' cocky Uchiha ass." She unsealed a pair of Dao, twin Chinese swords.

Perhaps I don't handle pressure very well, or I take it all too well that my mouth spouts the most amazing bullshit whenever I see my life flash before my eyes.

"Well, that's not very youthful."

I spurred forward, kunai in both hands to meet her charge. Metal clanged against metal as I kept up with her, stretching my senses to hear the sound of her blades, pick up the twitches of her muscles, look into her eyes between blinking to get an idea of where she would target next.

Tenten swung both swords sideways, and in an instant, switched her grip to hold both in one hand, while the other pulled out a chain with a weight at its end, and swung it towards my throat.

I reacted, trying to bat away the metal chain with my arm it wrapped around my appendage. The infuriated kunoichi pulled and brought down her Dao, driving it an inch deep into my shoulder.

"GAH!" I shouted, snapping my hand to grip the naked blade even as my palm began to bleed. And then anger descended upon my mind in a haze. _This bitch!_

For the first time in my life, I leaked true killing intent as the Cursed Seal began to unwind. My shoulder was on fire. I wanted to set her on fire. I could set her on fire. And that would feel great. The power flowing through me made me feel absolutely giddy.

It seemed like a good idea until the marks of the seal became visible to me and I remembered the reason I was in such a battered state in the first place.

' _NONONONONO HELL NO!'_ I was not going down that route. Itachi would be so disappointed in me. I would be throwing away everything he did if I let this continue. I tried to steady my breathing in futility.

Throwing caution to the wind, I began to use my chakra to push back the seal, making the stubborn black marks grow red again, and recede, painful inch by painful inch, excruciatingly slow.

Somewhere along the line Tenten had dropped the chain holding my arm prisoner and I pushed her sword out of the opposite shoulder, before leaping back. My right arm now hung uselessly by my side, blood dripping to the floor.

I was tired, nauseated and woozy.

"SHANNARO! GO SASUKE-KUN!"

"DON'T LOSE YOU BASTARD!"

I was not going to be forgiven if I gave up now, would I? Well, there was only one more thing to do. The spirit to never give up aside, I was not capable to carrying out anything after this one final move. Making a single seal, I rushed Tenten again.

She looked unsure of herself, but then her eyes steeled and she raised her twin swords.

My clone kept on running towards her as I substituted with the charred log she had gotten out of somewhere and transformed into Rock Lee. Wrapping my useless arm behind me as her eyes turned, no doubt seeing through the primary deception, I took out a scroll and threw it at her.

"Tenten, catch!" I emulated Lee's voice the best I could. The kunoichi floundered, swords going slack in her hand at the impulse to catch a scroll thrown by the visage of her teammate.

But catching was not imperative to the use of the scroll, which was designed to be used against Orochimaru, but had not been. It flapped open, revealing a collection of explosive tags. The blast rocked the arena, blasting the both of us away, me to the floor and her to the wall, which collided with her cranium. Tenten slumped to the floor, listless. I pushed myself with one arm and stood up in agony.

Hayate walked over to her, feeling her pulse. After confirming, he stepped away and waited. After possibly ten counts, he announced.

"Tenten is unable to continue. Winner, Uchiha Sasuke!"

* * *

Review? Plz don't kill me over how I wrote Tenten? ;^;


	10. Chapter 10

Longest chapter yet. Upon furhter thought, I changed Tenten's line a bit about being miffed over Sasuke's copying stuff. Thank you, ErzherzogKarl.

There are some subtle, darker aspects in this chapter. And some foreshadowing, but by now it should be apparent my style is do first, explain later much like Naruto and many animes.

* * *

 **¬.¬**

 **Chapter 10: A Hairstyle Does Not Reflect Your Power Levels**

 **¬.¬**

* * *

 _"The possesion of anything begins in the mind."_ ~Bruce Lee

* * *

I waited until Gai splashed some water on his student's face, causing her to come to, and then walked over. Our eyes met, and I awkwardly held out my left hand in the Seal of Reconciliation.

"Sorry about that butchering you comment." The brunette said as she returned the gesture, standing up with ease. I may have won, but she stood like it was the end of training session, while my posture was more suited for someone who had just returned from battle at a war.

"No need for an apology." I replied. Next to me, Kakashi-sensei appeared in a swirl of leaves.

"You did alright." He said, messing up my hair. "But you need a haircut. Ready to leave?"

I stared at him in question before remembering that the bangs on the right side of my forehead were severed, reaching only till my ear as opposed to chin. I huffed and nodded. The jounin teleported me alongside him to another room and then took out a brush and ink bottle.

There were pillars all around, arranged in a circle and blue tinted lighting. It was cool, with no wind. Was it underground?

"So, I see you have been busy," He commented, examining the seal on my neck. "Take off your shirt and wipe yourself with this towel. I know a temporary fix, but it's better than nothing."

"Do I need to take off my bandages?"

"Not really."

I wiped off the sweat and dirt on my upper body while Kakashi began to write on the floor.

"How did you learn the Kaiten?"

"The what?"

Kakashi did not pause in his actions. "The 'let it rip' move."

"Oh. That." I feigned innocence. "I learned that by myself. Why are you giving it such a weird name?"

"Stop lying." There was a small plop as he dipped the brush again.

"I am not." I bit into my cheek.

"Stop lying by omission then. That's a technique of the Main Hyuga Branch. Are you saying that you, an Uchiha, reinvented it on your own?"

"I, Uchiha Sasuke, hereby testify to not having ever seen that technique with these eyes, Sharingan or not and developing it on my own in isolation."

"This isn't a court. But if you feel like want to get closer to the Daimyo, I can arrange a Tora mission for you." Slight amusement covered his voice.

I crossed my arms and sulked, trying to think of a lie that would work. "Am I in trouble?"

"Hmm, not really. But I have to tell the Hokage something if a student of Copy Ninja Kakashi suddenly starts flaunting a technique of another clan without any permission."

As I wondered why the Hokage would take interest into this, I remembered a hushed conversation between Mikoto and Fugaku Uchiha, about a law presented to the leader of the village back when Sasuke was a wee lad, calling for Sharingan users to stop stealing/copying techniques of other clans without consent.

"I can just tell him that you taught me."

"It's cute when people think they can actually fool the Sandaime. Worst case scenario, the Hyuga might request a surface mind probe to determine the veracity of your statements, my cute little duckling."

By now Kakashi had finished painting on the floor behind and was in front, looking at my face now and then. I was genuinely afraid for once.

"Maa, don't worry."

"Easy for you to say. You got ninety nine jutsu, but Kaiten ain't one." I rapped. Kakashi actually paused at this, before shaking his head.

"Actually, I have around a thousand. Were you always like this, or did the seal have other effects?"

"The seal makes me angry and lose control. Naruto makes me question my sanity."I crossed my arms.

Kakashi smiled at this, and some tension I hadn't noticed before seemed to dissipate from his shoulders. "Good job on fighting it back." He took out a set of kunai and began to set them across the circle. I tried to make sense of the random pattern, but gave up.

"This method only works as long as you believe in your own willpower." Kakashi scratched his head. "Maa, you can do it even without extra help, so the chances of the Cursed Seal activating again are low for you." The jounin took off his glove and made an incision on his fingers, drawing kanji on my body with blood.

I watched in fascination for about twenty minutes before he moved onto my back for the remaining seal work.

"Ready?"

"Yes."

Without further ado, he sealed. Somehow, I had forgotten about the part where pain was involved when sealing things on a person. After I was done screaming and panting, I lied down on the floor.

"Kukuku, impressive, very impressive indeed." My blood froze at the sibilant voice, and Kakashi whirled around.

I scrambled up to see Orochimaru, no disguise on his face, walking towards us.

"Orochimaru." Kakashi's voice had no hint of the teacher I knew. I wondered if that was what he sounded like before he killed someone. But that was all I gleaned of their meeting.

Utterly exhausted, without a proper meal in days and now finally free from the worry of the curse mark taking over without constant vigilance, I slipped into oblivion.

* * *

I woke up in Konoha Hospital at dusk, with a gleeful nurse hovering over me. She had short dark hair, a chubby body and tired eyes. Judging from the blue stain on her lips, she had probably chewed the wrong side of a pen.

"Are you awake, Uchiha-san?"

"Yes." I sat up. All my bandages were changed, and the left side of my body no longer hurt. My head was cleared up as well. Even the shoulder which had been sliced by a sword felt okay. The door to my room opened and I noticed for the first time no one else was there; it was a VIP room.

"Oh, he's awake." Another voice said and a male medic-nin stepped into view. He was tall and brooding, but looked a bit relieved to see me. Not just the females but the males too? Did I nearly die or something? "Get him a set B meal."

"Okay. Be sure to finish it all, alright? Or be here when I get back." She muttered under her breath. The male in the white coat cracked a small smile on his otherwise serious face.

"Don't worry Yukimi, this boy here actually gives a damn for doctor's orders." The nurse looked at me in surprise, before mouthing something to the physician who nodded in confirmation.

Ah, that was it. One time when I was practicing sliding across a pond I bent forward too much and fell in head first, hitting my head on a rock near the shore. It felt like I had blacked out, and I caught a cold on the way back, so the next day I walked into the hospital.

I told Naruto I was sick in the morning and then went to get a prescription. Describing the events to the consultant doctor got me referred to a neurologist medic-nin, Arakawa-san, who scanned my head and told me nothing was wrong, but I could come back after three days with no training in between.

Having been at it continuously, I decided to let the time be used for rest and pursue my other interests at the library after informing a surprised Kakashi. When I went back for the prognosis, the same Arakawa-san was present and shocked I actually heeded his advice.

And henceforth, the Last Uchiha became known as the one ninja who heeded medical opinions. Apparently, that fame had not been quite forgotten, nor was the consensus false.

I stayed in bed until Yukimi-san came back a metallic tray filled with rice, curry, bananas and an apple and glass of milk. "Finish everything. You're a growing shinobi!"

I nodded. Contrary to popular belief, hospital food wasn't all bad. Except for the apple, it had nothing on the ones I got from my regular dealer.

...Did I just refer to a fruit merchant in the same terms as drug seller over apples?

My door banged open and in walked Naruto and Sakura. "I'll see you in the finals, believe it!"

"I take it you made it?" I asked, peeling a banana.

"Hehe, yeah! I had to fight this Sound girl, and she went down easy after a couple of clones."

"Huh. And Sakura?" I turned to her but she avoided my gaze.

"Oh, her! She was matched with that Gaara guy," I choked on the banana, "but Kakashi-sensei told her not to fight. She gave up."

"It was the best thing to do." I said, but the pink-haired girl hung her head. "What are the matchups then?"

"Right!" Naruto nodded importantly. "I versus Kankuro, Shino versus Temari, Fuzzy Brows versus Gaara, and then your match is the first, against Neji. I think Fuzzy Brows has an extra match with the asshole who hurt Sakura-chan in the forest, that Dosu guy."

"What." I deadpanned. Did I piss off some supernatural entity that watches over the Hyuga by performing the Heavenly Rotation? And where was Shikamaru?

"What happened to Nara?" I asked.

"Shikamaru? He got matched against Fuzzy Brows. That lazy ass never stood a chance against him. He used his shadow to catch him a very cool manoeuvre but Fuzzy Brows didn't give up and broke his hold!" Naruto supplied. Then his eyes turned serious. "Kick the crap out of Neji, won't ya?"

"Why?" I asked with dread. That one match couldn't have been fixed, could it? I thought it was all random selection.

"You weren't there to see his match against Hinata, but he was a total asshole!" Naruto animatedly began to relay his thoughts on the fight, which, overall, went just like canon. In the end the genin had to be restrained before he could land a killing blow.

"So, you're asking me to be an avenger?" I pointed out and the hyperactive blond paused to think, sensing some sort of trap in the words.

"Argh! Just kick his ass bastard!"

I bowed my head in mock acquiescence, "If that is my Fate, so be it." Sakura stiffened at the comment, about to rebuke me but then aborted.

"Oi! You think its so fun-" Naruto grabbed my collar and the door to the room opened, revealing Yukimi-san the nurse. Shock showed her face, which morphed into anger.

"What are you doing to a patient?! Out, get out this instance!" She squawked.

"It's fine, it's fine." I reassured her, removing Naruto's hand from my hospital shirt. On the other hand, I wanted to see what her reaction was about; the fact that Naruto looked like he was going to punch me, or the fact that it was _Naruto._

Her eyes turned sharp. "Uchiha-san, it's a good thing you're being discharged right now. I don't care if you are boys, or just having a 'manly talk', there will be no roughhousing in the wards again, understood?"

I bit back a retort at her completely neglecting to mention the Jinchuuriki. He was right there and wearing _orange._ Sakura moved nearer to him unconsciously, as she often did near shops or on the street and he shot her a grateful smile.

"Understood. Where do I fill the forms?" I kept my tone civil.

"Forms? Oh!" She brightened a bit again. "Sorry, I forgot bring yours with me. I mean, shinobi," she shrugged as if that word was an explanation. "I'll fill it for you so you can just go home for now. Here," she placed a premium-looking healing salve in my hands. "Don't strain your ribs, and sleep flat on your back!"

"Alright. Thank you." I slid my feet into green hospital slippers and stood on the floor, giving her a short bow. I made to grab my empty tray to drop it off in the cafeteria, but the nurse declined and shooed us out.

We walked in silence, perhaps all of us subconsciously reviewing the behaviour of the people around us for being with Naruto.

"Man! Let's go get some Ichiraku Ramen!" Naruto said suddenly. I felt quite full, but little strain to my stomach was nothing to ease my teammates' heart.

"Alright," Sakura gave him a small smile, even though I could tell she wanted to do nothing more than take a long bath and do something about her messy hair. Speaking of which...

I swallowed at the idea. She did look dejected at having not had a chance to showcase her skills, and in the forest must have been when she made her resolve to be a serious shinobi. And she was my teammate and friend; it was sort of my responsibility to cheer her up, was it not?

"Sakura," I began hesitantly and she perked up. "What sort of hair cut should I get?"

Sakura blinked, before blood rushed to her cheeks. "W-Well, uh, I think any style would suit you."

 _Praise the Log for generic responses that get us nowhere_. "Why don't you simply cut it? Girls are good at these sorts of things, no?"

"Hey! There are dozens of barbers in the village!" Naruto cried. The girl turned a shade darker than her hair.

"Okay." Sakura replied with a big grin at last. Naruto, seeing her beauty, simply sighed and muttered 'you bastard' to me. "You know Sasuke-kun, back in the academy all the girls thought you liked long hair." She said, pulling at bubblegum pink strand.

"Yeah, I remember that. Everyone was then trying to grow long hair. A girl even thought that Shikamaru liked you, 'cause he was staring at you one time and had long hair, believe it!"

I gave off a slight chuckle at that. "I have to thank whoever started that rumour. But not everyone grew their hair after that."

Naruto frowned. "They didn't? I'm sure the girls all did."

 _Just according to keikaku._ (T/N: Keikaku means plan).

"Hn. Hinata didn't. Short hair is pleasant, isn't it?" I smirked.

Naruto spluttered and Sakura giggled. "You bastard! Are you really the Sasuke from the academy?"

We had arrived finally arrived at Ichiraku and I pondered his question. Bit by bit, the indifferent mask was falling. "No. I guess things change."

* * *

After the impromptu ramen stop, we headed to Sakura's house and entered for the first time. It was a roomy, two storey house with no lawn.

"Pardon the intrusion," I half-chanted as I took off my shoes to enter.

"So, where's your room?" Naruto asked, a bit tactlessly. Sakura reddened.

"Not on this floor. Don't enter anywhere, without permission, got it?" She brandished a fist for further persuasion.

"R-right, I won't Sakura-chan, believe it!" Naruto scratched his cheek, trying not to sweat.

"Good. Wait here while I get scissors and some newspapers."

Moments later all three of us were in the lounge, a towel wrapped around my neck as I sat on a chair borrowed from the dining room with newspapers spread on the floor.

I wondered just how becoming a ninja had led to this situation. The things I do for friendship.

Naruto contributed by holding a two by one foot mirror in front of me. Judging by the pink frame, it was Sakura's personal vanity mirror. Using a spray bottle, she moistened my hair and then got to work.

By the time she was done, I was staring at my hair parted over left brow than the middle, most it swept backwards whilst the bangs slanted towards the right on the longer side, falling onto my right eye.

"Well, what do you think, Sasuke-kun? Your hair is a bit spry, so when you tie your hitai-ate it won't get into your eyes at all." Sakura fiddled with the hem of her dress.

"Or you can let it hang and be like Kakashi-sensei, showing only one eye to the world!" Naruto chimed in.

A felt a shiver down my spine, staring at the style which was remarkably similar to what Sasuke sported at the end of Shippuden. Was that how long Haruno Sakura would wait to implement her plans? Well, certainly it did not look bad, per se. "Good job. Thanks, Sakura."

A blushing, smiling face was her response. We left before her parents arrived home and headed to the library. Naruto had gotten the hang of reading fairly advanced Kanji, but still headed for the dictionary. I pulled out a text on the Land of Lightning and Sakura went for some light reading with an encyclopaedia of weapons.

In the evening we parted ways. I went home, bathed in hot water minding my injuries, applied the healing salve and went to sleep after weapon maintenance.

* * *

I woke up to Kakashi holding a bucket of water over my head. I blinked, before jumping out of bed.

"Yo!" He crinkled his eye, tossing the water over my bed anyway. "I didn't know you still wet the bed Sasuke."

I looked at him in disbelief. "Sensei, it's-" I glanced at the clock. "-four o'clock in the morning. What in the name of White Fang are you trying to do?"

Kakashi blinked. "That's a very specific person to swear by."

"We all have our heroes." I yawned, my sleepy mind trying to remember if I had said something I wasn't supposed to. And then I dragged my feet to the bathroom, ridding any and all worrisome thoughts with Don't Give a Crap no Jutsu.

By the time I had washed my face, I realized that I had just admitted to being an admirer of his father to Kakashi's face. When I got out and turned on the light, my teacher had a faraway look on his face.

"We're heading out to train for the finals at eight o'clock, my cute little student. Naruto will have a different instructor. Pack your gear for a month. Don't be late!" With that he exited from my apartment with a puff of smoke, and no hint of movement at the doors or windows.

Eight o'clock meant nearing ten. Don't be late my foot.

If I hadn't known about this beforehand, I imagined I'd be very pissed. Deciding to share the joy of people crashing one's apartment at ungodly hours, I broke into Naruto's residence.

Emptying a glass of water on his nether regions while he slept, I waited until he woke up. He did so after a moment, and then heartlessly accused me for pouring water on his bed.

"Do I look like someone who would do that?"

"OF Course you do! Everyone is fooled by your innocent demeanour, but I know what evil lies beneath your stoic facade!" Naruto jumped out of his bed, trying to strangle me.

 _The dictionaries are doing him good._ Not a second after being waken and he had the energy to jump up and down. With my Sharingan active at all times, dodging him was peanuts.

"Whatever. Let's go get breakfast." I turned and waited outside.

"Do we go get Sakura-chan too?" Naruto asked, trying to hide a smile but failing. He really loved hanging out, even if it was with the two of us getting on each other's nerves.

"Of course."

The Leaf village had a variety of restaurants that opened at early hours, ones that opened at night and closed at midday. Among them, Team Seven often frequented a small cafe by the name of 'Sannin Hotspot', apparently the place where the three legendary ninja gathered for an outing after the Third Shinobi War.

It was just a street away from the Konoha Library, another one of our haunts on our days off.

"Good morning." I said as we came into view of Sakura's house. She was sweeping the porch with a broom and looked pleasantly surprised to see us there. Her hair was now neater, reaching only till her neck.

"Morning, Naruto, Sasuke-kun."

"Let's get breakfast Sakura-chan!" Naruto cheered back.

"I'll go tell my parents." She made one more swipe of the floor and hurried back in. We only had to wait five minutes for her, which was a remarkable improvement.

 _I guess she actually did spent the extra time on her hair._ I thought to myself as we walked to the cafe together. To my surprise, a certain white haired man was already present there, chatting up a waitress. Was it my imagination, or did his red lined eyes seem to follow us?

After we had placed our orders at a table, I broke the news.

"Naruto, try to keep your voice down," the blond looked at me questioningly, "Kakashi-sensei is going to train me this month."

"THAT'S-" Inner Sakura took over and slapped a hand over Naruto's loud mouth, glaring at him with the promise of pain if he shouted again. The Jinchuuriki settled for a baleful glare. "Why? You already have so many techniques."

"What I did yesterday is apparently known as the Kaiten of the Main Branch of Hyuga," I drawled. "Kakashi thought I copied it, and may think I have acquired the Sharingan."

"I didn't know that," Sakura leaned forward. "But you came up with it on your own, right Sasuke-kun?"

"That's what I told him."

"But man, Heavenly Rotation? Who names their techniques with such wacky names?" Naruto snorted, not knowing his own father would have a technique called Spiraling Flash Super Round Dance Howl Style Three if things had gone as canon.

"I know." There was more sarcasm in my tone than intended, but breakfast was served. The cuisine in Konoha had little concept of fast food, but the service was very efficient.

We shared a large omelette with plenty of vegetables, such as capsicum, onions, tomatoes, and mushrooms topped with cheese. An idea I had introduced, and the chef was quick to implement. (The chef was female).

Other than that were toast, bowls of rice, grilled fish, green tea with honey, and a bowl of ramen for Naruto. The only reason he was allowed ramen was because after confiscating it multiple times, I came home to all my white shorts dyed pink with no hope for recovery.

Remembering the incident, I couldn't help but hide a twitch. Why were we friends again?

And then Naruto turned to me at that moment and we held each other's gaze, Sakura looking between us, then sighing.

"Sasuke-kun, can I be honest with you?" She asked, biting her lip.

"Hn. Always be honest with me. And don't just get angry at Naruto alone, I feel left out." I replied cheekily.

"See? He too is a jerk." Naruto pointed out eagerly to our only slightly blushing teammate and I sat back with a satisfied smirk.

"What he said."

"You two...this is why Kiba keeps asking me if you guys are gay." Sakura placed her head in her hands, raking her hair. I spit tea back into my cup and Naruto sucked noodles into his nose.

"WHAT?" We yelled in unison. Placing a hand on our heads, Sakura shoved us back into our seats. "Don't make a scene!" She hissed. Rubbing my crown, I had to admit she adjusted to instructions quickly.

"As if. I won't steal the idiot from Hyuga."

"S-shut up about her you bastard."

I steepled my fingers and rested my jaw on them. "You do know that the closest thing Konoha has to a princess likes you, right?"

"I know, she's too good for me." Naruto mumbled back. He made no gesture which indicated that he wanted Sakura to know she still held his interest. My machinations were paying off after all.

"There there," Sakura patted his shoulder. "She doesn't care about that, which means neither should you."

"Let's talk about something else." Naruto suggested and we acquiesced.

"So what do you guys know about Wood Release?" I began to set the bowls and utensils in order so the waitress could pick them up easily.

"Mokuton, signature of the Shodaime." Sakura replied and we began a back and forth, and I slipped in the idea perhaps it wasn't a bloodline, considering the Second Hokage's personality. He definitely would have pushed for a progeny to make the ability ample in the Leaf, and Hashirama was also known to be fond of children.

"Perhaps it wasn't that they didn't want to do it, but that they couldn't." Naruto seemed to focus on my words strangely.

"Ne ne, did his Wood Release have effect on other plants too?" the blond inquired. One benefit of talking about Hokages was that Naruto sometimes took interest in other things.

"Well, I don't know if he could use it for gardening, but it made him highly attuned to Nature Chakra. Now what that actually is, the books and scroll don't tell, but it apparently made him a Sage." I supplied carefully. Sakura wasn't making googly eyes at me for once, I noticed with a bit of pride.

After the food had settled in our stomachs we split the bill and left.

"I have to go train with Kakashi-sensei. He told me you'll have another instructor, Naruto."

"EEH?! But I want Kakashi-sensei to teach me! What's so special about you anyway?"

"I think it's time I learned to use that properly." I tapped near my eye. Naruto failed to be pacified and kept his grumbling up until we went our separate ways.

* * *

The rocky canyon was a part of Leaf Village, in as much as that there was a chunin patrol now and then. The only possessions I had were in a bag that been transported to God knew where the moment I handed it to the jounin accompanying me in a burst of smoke.

"Here, channel some chakra into this," He gave a paper the size of a trading card game, and I obeyed. The results were a mild surprise to me.

"Well, that's that." Kakashi spoke, seeing the crumpled chakra paper in my hand. I was definitely sure I had a fire affinity, but with how much effort Sasuke had poured in signature Uchiha techniques, it was no wonder they came to me easily, despite the chakra control.

"Are you finally going to teach me a jutsu?" I resisted the urge to bounce on my feet, warmed up and ready to go. _Chidori, here I come_.

"What are the ones that you already know?" Kakashi inquired, getting out of his slouch a bit. I decided to be fully honest.

"Fireball, Phoenix Flower, Body Flicker, Shadow Clone, Imagination Clone; that one allows me to form a clone as I imagine without using Transformation, and the Front Lotus." I paused for breath, stopping myself from listing all. "I can also use Genjutsu to flip a person's balance by manipulating hearing, sight and sometimes smell. Those are Sharingan techniques though."

"Show me." I made no protest and activated it, in all its triple tomoe glory. Kakashi stared back with no reaction. He simply crooked a finger like he was calling his dogs.

Eye-twitching, we launched into taijutsu. It was brutal, and by the time we were done I was wondering if he had kept count to how many times I had smashed into the ground hard enough to crack it. Kakashi's training method was to repeat and repeat.

"There's a noticeable improvement, but you are still trying to create your own pace when you spar, rather than reading and dictating the fight from your opponent." Kakashi commented after ten minutes, closing his book. Not showing any signs of efforts, he looked at me down on the ground. "Up. Again."

I hid a wince. It was a long week ahead of me. I obtained weights similar to Lee's and every morning had to sprint up and down the canyons, being chased by summons Kakashi left in the afternoon. In the evening he came back after whatever duties he had to perform.

I barely got any sleep. The man seemed to know what he was doing, and when to toss me a soldier pill, when it was time for me to deplete my chakra by consecutive Heavenly Rotations, when to practice chakra control in order to not lose practice as my reserves were forcibly increased. To top it off were pink, raw smelling smoothies that I had to consume. They consisted of meat and eggs.

The scorching heat or the rain on one day did not seem to bother him as he pummelled me into the ground in taijutsu. There was no article of clothing I had which wasn't stained with blood and dirt. Time passed ever so slowly.

I was sure I was depressed. One night when the pain kept me awake, I climbed the tallest formation in the field and considered just jumping off it. It was becoming too much, and feeling embarrassed yet passive aggressive, I couldn't even say anything.

The only solace was the stars, millions of them visible in the night sky. It was breathtaking sight, and my chest felt tight at the imagery. No doubt it was due to Konoha's clean environment, the shades of magenta, azure and amethyst sprinkled with dots of white, blue and golden.

I remember thinking it was a wonderful last sight.

But then Pakkun showed up out of nowhere. "You should be asleep."

I jumped, muttering a quick apology before sprinting back to my sleeping bag, staring at the stars once more. The pug followed me silently and climbed onto my chest, a small ball of warmth and fluffiness.

"Go to sleep, pup. Anything on your mind?" The ninken spoke very gently in that gruff voice of his. Had Pakkun realized? Dogs were very keen empaths, able to pick up distress in humans.

 _I don't want to be a ninja._

But I couldn't say it. I had the knowledge and thus duty, a chance the people around me would do anything for. So much suffering lay ahead in the future, it was my responsibility to act maturely. Kakashi-sensei was shaping me into handle the things that lay ahead, and I needed it.

"Nothing." I left things at that.

At the end of week, the days didn't get better. In fact, they took a turn for the worse when Kakashi handed me a bagful of leaves to practice Lightning Chakra.

"Try to transfer chakra to the leaf. Like this," I observed with the Sharingan as the leaf in his hand sparked, before cluttering to the floor in sharp, but irregular parts.

I reached for chakra, feeling it buzzing before injecting it into the leaf. Kakashi's chakra was light blue in colour, and seemed to oscillate in flow before exiting the tenketsu inside his fingers.

Much of it dissipated, leaving a vein-like pattern of the leaf with a small sizzle. Trying again, I split the leaf into three. Kakashi nodded, before opening his book again.

"Keep doing that until you get pieces as small as mine."

Internally seething at his actions, I hit the exercise with ferocity. After a dozen or so tries, with my Dojutsu to help see the chakra I had it down to pat. But release chakra from hands only was easy, and as long as I was practicing this Kakashi wasn't running me into the ground anytime soon... seeing how many leaves I had.

So I began to move chakra from my various tenketsu of my body to my fingers. By the afternoon I was proficient in channelling lightning from my upper half of the body to my fingers. The sound of Kakashi closing his book reached my ears and I began to panic, eyes darting to look for an escape before I took another leaf from the nearly empty bag and stuck it to my toe, trying to channel lightning into it.

"What are you doing?" Kakashi asked flatly and I flinched.

"Increasing my chakra control." I responded, sweating bullets.

"Well, carry on." Patting my head almost condescendingly, he went back to his book. I sighed in relief. When all the leaves had been tattered, it was time for him to leave. I showed the ability to juggle a few sparks between my fingers before the performed the summoning jutsu.

I thought I had gotten off a bit easy, but his pack seemed even more vicious in chasing me down. As thoughtful as Pakkun had been, I realized bitterly he was loyal to Kakashi and would do whatever his master said. It was quite irrational of me to feel betrayed, really.

After the tenth day I had finally felt a bit adjusted to the weights, which were ridiculously heavy and continuously a drain on my chakra in order to move reasonably, Kakashi replaced them with heavier ones. It was hard enough to walk without chakra, levels of which almost seemed low for me. A continuous headache developed behind my eyes.

We had barely spoken in the time he was training me, but now I refused to speak with the bastard altogether. It wasn't the meals or sleep or a chance to actually relax that I missed, or proper bathroom to wash or relieve myself; it was social contact.

But I was growing. I did not get hit as much as I used to, I was able to mimic Kakashi perfectly when he formed handseals and telegraphed his moves. He would challenge me to copy his handseals as he made them, while not performing any jutsu for me to copy, a struggle for me when he was not even using his full speed.

I already knew that to copy elemental techniques, a certain base was needed. Hand seals were more than just mnemonics that shaped your chakra, they were commands; the same combination would give the same result for any user of any nation, even if they themselves were unaware of it, which was the principle on which the Sharingan worked.

You could use the technique, but fail to understand it entirely. If the level between the copier and the copied was tilted towards the latter, the chance of a jutsu being siphoned was low. While I had copped off Shadows Clones from Naruto within a day, something without seals, like the Rasengan, was giving me a lot of trouble.

The fifteenth day, Kakashi announced, was a break. And by break he meant no sparring, running or soldier pills; I had to do pull ups, push ups, crunches, balance rocks for half an hour until my wrists were on fire and eat whatever the hell ordered me to shove into my mouth. After the meat smoothies I was afraid ask what the stuff was.

But the tasks were repetitive, rinse and repeat, and my mind began to wander, but always on edge in case Kakashi started an impromptu sparring session. Look underneath the underneath, and expect the unexpected.

So I was angry, but not surprised, when he chose to attack at the moment all my limbs felt like their bones had dissolved into gelatine and all I could was crawl, scratch and bite in response. But looking graceful would have no place in a fight to the death.

All my rage led me to climbing that tall formation once again, that in the increased moonlight seemed like a tornado sculpture. What would hurt more, another day with the ex-ANBU captain or jumping from this height?

With a snarl, I mindlessly pushed chakra into my fingers and began to punch into my tenketsu, having long memorized their positions on my own body.

Perhaps my most stupid feat to date, but at least the pain and adrenaline brought me back to alternate-reality.

"Fudge, that smarts!" I hissed, trying, to push chakra into my left arm in an attempt to undo the act. "If only there was something like Control + Z no Jutsu- _shit_!" I hissed, whispering a few more cuss words, remembering why I had decided not to use moves like these.

One, Gentle Fist was one truly style that could not be blocked. I had tried many times when training by myself, but once a tenketsu had been pierced with chakra, it did not reopen for an hour or two.

And two, it was my most lethal technique, conjuring images of a pseudo-genin with his chakra scalpels. If pushed hard enough, I could do that too. But I was afraid, and felt no shame about it.

Onto other thoughts, Naruto had been able to rush chakra through his system after Sixty-Four Palms, albeit from a different source. I had tried to hold my chakra, letting its circulation build up before rushing it into areas of the network affected, to no success. What was I doing wrong? Although having more chakra flow through the tenketsu than it was attacked with would mitigate the Gentle Fist strike, it wasn't a viable strategy against any user, let alone Hyuga Neji.

I frowned, rubbing my forehead to alleviate some of my headache. For all I know, I may not even be hitting my tenketsu since the Sharingan did not have the magnification of a Byakugan, just enhanced observation which let me experiment after studying anatomy.

Chakra followed the past of least resistance and jabbed tenketsu were as good as insulated points, so the attempt to push chakra directly through the tenketsu itself without aid from the surrounding ones was moot. I rubbed my forearm, wondering if there was a way to inject chakra externally...

Like I did when bastardizing a chakra strike...

I gently coated my right hand with chakra and began to massage with forearm. It increased the pain, but by now I was no stranger to it; hell, I would its best man should it decide to get married. Like the process of slowly tearing off a band-aid over a scrape, I worked slowly, letting the pain build up till I could handle it, and then rest, before starting again.

Five minutes later, I made a half ram seal, trying to feel the flow. It worked, and yet not. Any hand-based jutsu would suffer, but moving the hand itself with enhancement was no longer a problem. And if my core points were hit, sealing the source, I couldn't use my own chakra to slightly open the points like I did just now.

I sighed, beginning to stretch for no reason. There was the matter with the invasion, of changing the Hyuga, of Gaara and Kabuto which I had been mulling over to deal with but was making no progress. Contrary to popular opinion, the security did _not_ suck.

Asking to around for Kabuto would be no hassle since he was playing a Leaf Ninja and-

I pulled out a kunai on pure reflex to dodge the casually thrown shurikens at me by Kakashi. Sharingan already active, I parried further advances with a kunai.

"You've improved my little minion." Kakashi stepped back, smiling. "How are you holding up?"

 _How am I holding up? HOW AM I HOLDING UP?!_

Kakashi deadpanned, seeing the glare I sent him. "Hey now, I think you're doing well. More than well, in fact, because by now I was expecting you to run back to the village."

"Why would I do that? This training is necessary." I ground out, unable to control how frustrated I sounded.

"And any other genin would be trying to wring my neck, trying to ask the point of all this. Well, maybe not Rock Lee. You haven't questioned anything I've said. Not once." The jounin added wryly, walking up to me while looking at the sky. His statement was pointless because I knew what he wanted to teach me. Psych.

"You remind me of myself. Talented and arrogant, never questioning your superior officers. But tell me, what is your dream?"He asked softly.

"To bring justice to a certain man." I replied at once, the gears in my mind spinning and whirring. "To finally be myself." A goal of mine completely unrelated to Sasuke.

"Justice? That's an odd choice of words." Kakashi probed. I obliged, having waited for an opportunity to voice these thoughts for a long time.

"Odd, huh. Kakashi," I said, still a bit pissed at him, "You knew Itachi, right?"

There was a long silence. The moon was beginning to glow from underneath, signalling the arrival of the Sun. Just when I was about to walk away, he spoke.

"I like to think I did. Why are you asking?" The man's tone was carefully neutral, but I could tell he was out of his depth, flustered.

"Many reasons. One, talking about such things tends to help. Two, recently I've begun to find it very odd," I stopped, rehearsing in mind before saying the following words. "Why would someone, in order to test the limits of his strength, use the darkness of the night to kill his opponents without giving them a chance to fight? If his specialty was assassination, I have no qualms about admitting the Hyuga would have been a more challenging target, assuming Itachi's motives were what he told me they were."

Kakashi's eye widened visibly in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"I'm asking if you can think of any reason for Itachi to kill the Uchiha Clan besides 'testing his capacity'," I ground my teeth at the phrase, feeling a whirlwind of emotions. Anger the world that was supposed to be only fictional, a rage at my own powerlessness and an overwhelming grief.

I had never had a sibling before, and my heart was bent and torn over having an older brother now, but he had to Uchiha fricking Itachi.

"Who gained the most from the Uchiha disappearing? Why was I left alive? He killed father and mother, mother! The woman who gave birth to him, but he left me alive!" I was pulling at the masked jounin's jacket, who was watching me with a strange calm. "He was crying! I saw it with my Sharingan! He tells me to hate him and when I throw a kunai at his head, he turns to look at me with tears!"

No longer was I on the outskirts of the Leaf to welcome dawn, but back in the Uchiha Compound at night, lying on the ground whilst looking up at the boy I had pathetically tried to kill. A man whose only freedom was death at the very hands I was training, unless I did something.

"-ke, Sasuke!" Kakashi blurred into view and the picture disappeared. "Get a hold of yourself!"

It hurts, something hurts but I don't know what, I don't know where. Quick as a flash I take out a kunai and stab it into my thigh, giving the pain a location, giving it a reason in an attempt to regain control.

Kakashi solved the problem in a way the emotionally stunted ex-ANBU captain. Waiting for me to gain a semblance of sanity and then launch into a spar so I can work on instincts. The less I think the better it seems to be at the moment.

And knowing the jounin, it would be while if he brought up this incident again. If he ever would. For now, the fifteenth day was upon us.

* * *

"Everything I've put you through, is for you to learn this; my only original technique, the Chidori." Kakashi intoned after a thorough warm up and a soldier pill for me. I wiped a bit of blood from my mouth and nodded for him to continue.

"I'll be blunt. It's an assassination jutsu and I hope you never have to use it. This is an order," And the aloof teacher who called his students cute and little was gone, his voice steely, "Do not use this unless the lives of you or your comrades are under threat."

I straightened, painful as it was. "Yes sir."

"Watch." Kakashi went through Ox, Rabbit, and Monkey with immediacy and held his hand out. I watched closely, seeing the chakra rush down his arm and begin to exit, transforming in nature only, not shape, appearing like tiny threads of chakra attracting each other, then repelling, then changing direction, some escaping the surface of his hand before being recaptured.

It was like Rasengan in the way that chakra needed to be manipulated in arbitrary directions, then changed into Lightning nature. Once the transformation was done it began to produce its signatory sound. But there was more to it. Further control was needed to increase the area of the jutsu outside the hand and keep it grounded, lest the lightning decide to travel to ground through the body.

Those stray bolts flickering between the ground and hand faster than the eye could see, if it saw at all, weren't for a fancy effect or unintended. I focused on those as Kakashi leaning close to the ground, ripping the rock without even touching as he sprinted across it and slammed his hand into a small boulder without caring about his bones.

In fact, his hand seemed to slide through the rock like a knife through butter, and Kakashi dragged it in and up with a jump. Cutting off the technique, he turned to me and began walking, looking like a total badass when rock split, cleaved into two.

"Your turn."

I hid a smirk as I performed the seals slowly, deliberately. While I was concerned with efficient mastery of chakra and control, even musing with the idea of medical techniques, I had not, so to say, skipped on the cool techniques. Like, for example, the Rasengan.

Of course, I had to use copy the shadow clone technique first (and wasn't that a novel experience to use it), which cost me a good three months before I could have an alibi while buying water balloons, and even played with the idea of learning it when I could do so openly, to see if I could do it within a week.

If only I had known how stupid I was. 'Dead-last' was just a cute nickname now I had walked in the shoes for learning the Fourth's technique. Naruto was a member of the genius club too.

I was unable to do it without a shadow clone, which itself cost me more than I could afford in actual combat, at which point increasing my chakra reserves seemed like a very good idea. So learning the Kaiten was more of a compromise between depleting my chakra continuously, while not losing my hard-earned control. Control which was crucial to some plans.

 _Ox. Rabbit. Monkey._ Already I could feel the flow of my chakra jittery and move back forth in my arm like current, waiting to become lightning.

I held my hand down, letting my chakra coat it and spread, small sparks and untransformed wisps flickering between the ground and around my hand. Tomoe in my eyes spinning, I increased the chakra being expelled and began to convert its nature.

One moment it was silent. The next, the area exploded with a sound akin to several thousand birds chirping. For sake of propriety, we can assume it was ten thousand words.

But I wasn't done.

My chakra was flowing freely, there was another step that could be added to the procedure; shape manipulation.

I pumped even more chakra into the technique with a yell, the ground cracking from a few stray bolts and the ionized air began to smell of ozone. My hand itself began to burn slightly, but I didn't back down.

First I straightened the fingers of my clawed hand which was perpendicular to my wrist, and then I pulled back with my elbow, breaking more land as I held my hand flat and in line with my forearm, before supplying more chakra at the ends of my finger tips.

I couldn't help but grin when even in a transformed nature, chakra obeyed the rule of going from higher potential to lower, that is, rushing from my fingers towards my hands, sweeping back to form half a hexagon of lightning at the end of my arm.

Clutching my elbow, I shouted with pained effort and rushed forward to sink my hand into a nondescript rock wall. It slid in with so little effort that had the Sharingan not covered me, I would have skidded into the wall with my head and knocked myself out.

And wouldn't that be a story of how I got my arm stuck in a rock. Placing my hand on the rock wall victim to my attack, I just as easily slid my arm out from the small crater I had caused, before cutting off the technique.

"Hn." I smirked to see Kakashi had been watching with his Sharingan. I tapped the poor formation with my knuckles, about to retort wittily when cracks appeared on the rock in the form of an asymmetrical honey comb.

"Wow." I uttered, not expecting that. It wasn't as impressive as splitting the rock into two, but definitely interesting.

Kakashi found his voice somehow and walked over to inspect the cracks. "You know, I'm beginning to think that I like you. Maa, want a biscuit?"

"I am not a dog!" Why did I look up to this man again?


	11. Chapter 11

By the way, full title of this story is a completed rhyme. Along with the other things I'm hiding about chapters in the quotes and titles. Thanks for reviewing you all! This chapter has no fight scenes, and I'm pretty much montaging the training, but it's slice of life. Enjoy! And holy crap you guys, a the follows are about hit a thousand! 1000! I never imagined a day where any fanfic of mine would ever even exceed more than five hundred. And let me know if you want to witness other character's fight scenes too, even though that's troublesome for me to write. :P

 **¬.¬**

 **Chapter 11: Clock Strikes**

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* * *

" _Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do._ " ~Bruce Lee

* * *

Stealth exercises were added to the routine after Kakashi heard my outburst about Itachi. Although he didn't comment on it, by his actions he had was clearly thinking ahead.

It included chakra suppression and sensing, chakra enhancement for the ears and nose and how to move about without leaving traces of myself. He regarded me with a suspicious gaze when it came to manoeuvres without use of chakra, but my parkour was something I was proud of. It had the sense of freedom I desired, but learning it was unrelated to being a shinobi, back in my world.

Except for hiding my scent from his dogs, I was able to avoid the ex-ANBU for half an hour at most, taking pages from Naruto's book and slightly tweaking and misdirecting common procedures ingrained into all ninja. My request to learn some ANBU sign language wasn't acknowledged.

We sat grilling fish over a fire one night two days later, when Kakashi approached a topic I had been waiting for a long time. Pakkun lay several feet away, on guard while the rest of the pack patrolled randomly.

"For a long time I thought you brothers were worlds apart in terms of skill," I listened raptly, drawing myself up a bit. "But now I'm beginning to think the gap isn't as large as I thought. That boy was genius among us geniuses, ANBU captain at the age you are now."

He turned over his meal and inspected it, before moving away from the light cast by the fire and taking a bite. "The Itachi I knew was efficient, wise, and had a sweet tooth so unlike the grown-up he was trying to be. When I heard of the massacre, I thought he had simply snapped due to the burden of expectations on him. The Uchiha genius, the rising star of ANBU, the next legend of the Leaf, or so they all said." A soft sigh, his eye lost in memories I couldn't see.

" _Those who turn their hands against their comrades are sure to die a terrible death,_ " I quoted. "Those are his words."

Kakashi snapped his head to me, before nodding slowly. "He was the thinker-type. My observations, will you listen to them? You've displayed a better mentality than your academy records, but I still feel like I should ask."

I nodded silently. "Please, sensei. By now you should know much of my persona is pretence."

"If we assume he was not unstable, that he was still the person his comrades thought who he was, then what he did must have been necessary in his own view. How well do you remember your life before _that event_ happened?"

Memories came to me, playing and fighting with cousins and clan children, fighting for clan children against bullies, getting told off for the scuffles and not behaving like the ideal son of a Clan ahead, obeying to gain Father's respect and attention. Flashes of the Itachi and Shisui, mostly Itachi- _niisan_. Not much memories of venturing outside the clan to play with or mingle among strangers or civilian who my clan policed for the large part.

And of course, the Massacre itself. But that was a reality I had accepted over countless nightmares. I barely woke up with a scream or terror bubbling within me anymore.

"I can recall it, but not much or specifically. Nothing you have to dance around."

The jounin nodded, shadows cast by fire shifting around us. "The Uchiha clan wasn't well liked. They were more feared than respected, and the police force was a large part of it. When the village was made, laws were drafted and they were meant to be followed. People needed time to settle to this huge leap in society, when looting amongst each other was prosecuted, seeking revenge for past wrongs due to events past in the Warring Clans era illegal, a system put into place to elevate the rights of all who called themselves the citizens of the Hidden Leaf,"

His lazy drawl was gone, replaced with slightly charismatic, soothing narration. Lost in his tale, I burnt one side of my fish. "Lots of Clan customs were subjected to foreign inspection, many stamped out by the respective clans themselves by much internal struggle. If it weren't for Hashirama-sama's ruling and Tobirama-sama's sharp mind, this evolution would have been impossible. In fact, Nidaime-sama still regretted the existence of the Branch House of Hyuga, being the seal-master that he was, but there was also a constant state of war the Hidden Leaf was in,

"But that is another topic. Point is, the Uchiha clan was best suited to handling both miscreant shinobi and civilians, something that was bureaucratically efficient, time was of critical essence and so the police force was created with them in mind as single institution of justice for both types of status inhabitants of the Village had, by Nidaime-sama. Do you know that less than half the officers were from your clan at the time of inception?"

I quickly nodded in negative to the question, hungry for more. "Maa, it's true. Uchiha, Aburame, Inuzuka and Hyuga made great field agents, patrollers and criminal trackers, but Yamanaka were also a part of the questioning procedure because the T&I is for shinobi only, Nara worked as investigators and forensic, but I'm stereotyping, departments were not meant to be Clan specific, or even shinobi-only in some cases. Uchiha were still majority though."

"I didn't know that. All I recall is Uchiha upon Uchiha in the police force. Even our symbol was on the uniforms and the building." But that just made so much more sense than the stupidity of allowing one family to run a state institution, vital Bloodline limit be damned. People's thoughts did matter on such opinions.

"So, your ancestors gained a reputation during the war and at end of Nidaime-sama's rule, those changes were made. Somewhere along of the line of Sandaime-sama's, almost the police was comprised of Uchiha upon Uchiha as you say, cute little minion. As our population grew, so did our opinions and the differences between them. Other clans had businesses which required a good reputation, and people here love to gossip; the rumours can have stupid and dangerous consequences."

Rumours, huh? A face came to mind, a bright smile that completely distracted the viewer from the shadows that lurked in blue eyes. _Naruto._

"...Yes, they can."

"So how it went from the Hidden Leaf Police Force to the Uchiha Police Force was gradual, with people not liking being forced adopt new living ways and those who enforced them in general, even if it was for the sake of a safer place to live in. Factor in that much of Uchiha tradition remained same throughout, other Clans slowly distanced themselves-"

"But what about Nara? They could see what was going on and its importance, right?"

"All fine and dandy until some 'medicinal' herbs they grew were found in quite a raid. They used the following sobriety and intellect to cover up quite a bit."

I choked on my fish. I couldn't deny that given the opportunity, Shikamaru would like some marijuana. Cloud watching would be even more fun and relaxing.

"And I won't insult your clan so much, but they took much pride in themselves and their duty, such was the rewards for their efforts; scorn, people changing streets whenever they saw the emblem, distrust and much more. And an Uchiha can hold quite a grudge, so I'm guessing some retribution had to be happening. End of story."

I jerked abruptly. "What? No idea on what was happening?"

"Maa, it's a bad influence for a jounin sensei to rationalize the actions of a traitor to his student."

Oh. Even with Pakkun on watch, his other pack somewhere on the prowl, Kakashi refused to justify what Itachi actually did. Catching on quickly, I nodded, before asking a question of my own.

"Maa, it would be very bad indeed sensei. But we still don't have a police force, so who took charge and was relegated to their duties?" _Who gained the most from the removal of the Uchiha?_

Kakashi gazed at me approvingly. "ANBU were visible for days doing damage control, and normal chunin were spread out to cover the more volatile areas of the village. Any other things the police force used to do that the citizens realized later on were turned into missions."

 _The Hokage, his authority increased the most._ The Kage system seemed like a dictatorship, but it involved a council of the clans which acted much like the parliament. There was even ' _voting involved and stuff!_ ' to quote Naruto, who was trying to remember one of Jiji's lessons.

"I see." And behind that Massacre was a man who lusted after the hat. A shiver ran down my spine. Just what level of the game was Danzo playing? Looking at my teacher, I asked one last question for the night, "When will you sneak up on me and warn me not to poke my nose where it doesn't belong?"

The answer was a gloved hand landing on my head to ruffle my hair from behind. "Maa, you ruined my fun." He replied much too cheerfully. _Crap._

* * *

A week later, Kakashi asked me what clothes I would like, since mine were falling apart. I had been much too concerned about when Gaara would show up, calling for my blood, to have noticed. Could the different match-ups have influenced who he staked out?

"I'll be using your money, so don't hold back on the expenses." Kakashi crinkled his eye.

"Don't you mean, 'I'll be using my own jounin salary that dwarfs yours, my little minion' instead?" I retorted, sitting on the ground in the lotus position. After passing over Chidori and learning Raikiri, it's more refined version instead; my teacher was having me work on suppressing my chakra for stealth.

"Nope!" The man's voice was too cheery for someone whose original technique had been learned over the course of 48 hours, and then altered. He could flatten the cloud of sparking electricity all right, but couldn't quite make a small lance of lightning chakra.

Granted his version was what I could do at best and with hand seals, but the seemingly phlegmatic scarecrow couldn't sharpen his Lightning Blade like I did, even I was using my left hand to do it. I called it _Raiyari_ , or Lightning Lance.

Littered on the rocks around us were the results of two variations when used by me; Raikiri making random but powerful craters in vaguely hexagon shapes, Raiyari making neat circles with cracks spiralling clockwise. The memory of Kakashi's face- er, slackened eye, still made me giddy.

The latter took too much time to create, and was more aesthetic in terms of purpose, but I couldn't wait to see if I could complete the Rasengan with it. That would help in coming over my deficiency in the second step, which required the chakra to be dense, moulded several times over to pop the goddamn rubber ball, something I still couldn't do easily.

On the other hand, since I couldn't use the technique in combat, I had very less chance of compromising my cover. And I could use the Lightning Blade three times per day, instead of Sasuke's two.

The thought made me giggle.

"Hm, what kind of outfit are you thinking about?" Kakashi muttered, whacking me with his book.

"Sensei!" I protested, gingerly touching my head. "I had a bruise there!"

"Oh. Didn't know. Sorry?"

My fluctuation in my mood made my chakra flare, ruining my efforts to keep it hide it. Kakashi tsk'ed, as if to say ' _you can't even manage this much distraction?_ ' and I exhaled slowly, restarting my flow.

I began to describe to him the outfit I would like, and he shut his book, summoning his pack. I managed to climb to my feet without grumbling. Kakashi must have noticed, because he swapped my weights for heavier ones before leaving.

Much heavier ones. I gulped, looking at the pack eyeing my like a very juicy piece of steak. The last race had gone without me getting bitten by each dog more than once. I think it was Bisuke who missed the experience the most, considering how he was sizing me up.

The Last Uchiha, scared of a dog that didn't even reach his knee. What a cute sight.

* * *

My new look was a customized, standard blue shirt with matching trousers. The sleeves reached down to cover my wrists and hand, taped fingers peeking out from the edge. The round collar was higher, reaching up to my nose. On the back was the _uchiwa_ , on the bicep the Uzumaki spiral. The trousers tapered to black sandals yet to be broken in.

Beneath it all I wore a new, protective mesh and had hidden kunai holsters inside both sleeves.

"There's another set at your home." Kakashi informed me casually when I was done changing, sitting at the bank of the small river we were at. It was the only body of water around for miles, where I bathed whenever I could.

"Right," My voice was curt. All the material seemed high quality, and was paid for from my wallet.

"Let's get you used to the new clothes. For starters, break in the footwear. _Kuchiyose no Jutsu!_ "

At least the weights weren't renewed. It was miracle that in all this insanity I hadn't turned around and tried to bite the dogs for change. Unfortunately, as an Uchiha, I had a greater chance of falling victim to the Cycle of Hatred, and could allow myself such ease.

Sigh.

* * *

On the twenty ninth day, the weights came off.

"This time, we get to race together, my cute little pup. If you win, this is your prize!" Kakashi-sensei held out a handkerchief with the _henohenomoheji_.

I stretched my legs, feeling light as a feather. I believed I could fly. "Hn. One hour race as usual?"

At the signal of a small pebble falling, we took off, with me thinking the words ' _beep beep!_ '

I was confident I could easily overtake a sports car at this point in time, but Kakashi was still ahead of me. I threw caution to the wind, pumped my legs with chakra to close the distance between us but it only shrank by a few meters.

In the one hour we ran, I covered four times as much distance as previous attempts.

"Your speed is acceptable, almost equal to Gai's little clone. Maa, I might have gone a bit overboard with your training."

I balked. "Equal to Lee-senpai?"

Kakashi blinked. "Senpai?"

"He's a year older." I explained. And completely kickass, enough to foil whatever Shikamaru planned for him.

"Ah, yes. Naruto is your Eternal Rival." Kakashi said wisely.

"Did you say something sensei?" I blinked back.

"..."

"..."

A fist to the noggin that earned me.

"Don't steal my lines. Very _un_ cool minion." He gave a half-hearted glare. "Also, don't use your new taijutsu in action just yet."

"Hn." I agreed. I had much physical conditioning to do before I could mix lightning chakra with my forms. Did I mention it looked badass? For effects, I could even make sparks of blue electricity flicker up and down across my body, stealing the idea from the second level of a certain warrior race native to Planet Vegeta.

And the taijutsu itself was inspired from the moves of Jin Kazama from Tekken. Come to think of it, Sasuke and Jin looked sort of similar. And they had ancestors bent on world domination. Came from prestigious yet infamous families. Incorporated lightning into their attacks. All I was missing was the Devil Gene...hell, the Curse Mark fit even that bill to a T.

I shuddered. _Must not get infected by the power of the emo._

The last days ended with Kakashi leading me on an approximately forty hour streak across the village, that ended with me crying out of frustration, breaking my knuckles from punching against a rock in quite a moody act of self harm, before escaping towards the village with my all.

It was night, so the image of a grimy, bloody and singed genin limping was not drawing as much attention as it would have until I checked myself into the hospital. The distracted medic, probably just checking into his shift, stared at me for a few seconds, trying to articulate something as he flapped his lips and wrung his hands.

I saved him the hassle and simply fainted.

A deviated nose from a punch that wasn't blocked, small cracks on my sternum, the hardest bone in my body, eye strain from constantly using the Sharingan, blisters on my feet, low blood levels, minute soldier pill poisoning, around six kilos lost in weight, trapped muscles probably from the time I took the fight to the river and Kakashi held my adrenaline fuelled, heated body underwater and much more if I cared to read about it.

 _A 'little' overboard, hehehe..._

"But will it hinder me in the long term? I have an exam tomorrow." I groaned, and the medic on duty, a bespectacled young lady shook her head in exasperation.

"Unfortunately, nothing is damaged beyond hours of chakra therapy and rest." Guess Kakashi wasn't a genius for nothing. I was sedated and when I came to, it felt like I was in someone else's body. Pains I wasn't aware of had subsided.

It was dawn, and instead of exiting through the window I walked out of my room.

"I'm going home." I informed a bleary eyed receptionist. "Room 508, Uchiha Sasuke. Bye!" I gave little wink as I teleported away just as the poor guy sat up with a jolt and scrambled for a pen. I knew it wasn't his job, but the Last Uchiha status had a perk that even it wasn't he'd find the person whose it was and tell them.

Instead of my apartment, my feet found their way to the Third Training Ground, where we became Team Seven without a single fight. The nostalgia hadn't even set in when small pulses of chakra that I sent out with frequency, to detect Kakashi's surprise attacks around the clock, picked up two signatures, one refined and small, like a flower swaying in the zephyr, and the other bright, warm, like a picnic on a sunny day.

Definitely Naruto. Who was he here with? Suppressing my own chakra to my best, which meant at a level where my jounin sensei used other senses to track me, I began to move through the tress noiselessly. Enhancing my hearing with chakra, sure enough, I could hear a hyperactive voice.

"-and well, he only acts like a bastard! Deep down, I know he's an alright person. There's no need to worry about Sasuke, Hinata-chan!"

 _Heh. Dobe._

Ah. I stifled a giggle. I made sure he was aware Hinata liked him, and he was finally alone with her.

"A-ano, okay Naruto-kun." Hinata's timid voice easily reached my ears. "Good luck for the finals."

Slinking away in order to avoid eaves dropping, I travelled to yet unopened Ichiraku Ramen to pick up a bowl of miso and pork by pulling the ' _Naruto's friend_ ' card, then to a sweets shop for some anmitsu. Climbing to the roof of a three storey building, I let my senses spread out, homing in on Naruto's signature. Letting other interesting information aside, because if I'd be there all morning if indulged my curiosity.

Finding him enroute to Sakura's place, I smiled to myself and followed. Closing in, I let a swirl of leaves announce my entry as I teleported right beside him. "Hn."

"Ack!" Naruto and Sakura, both of them present, jumped. I let myself smirk, my high collar concealing everything beneath my nose. "Yo, dobe."

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura greeted, and then her eyes fell to my hands. And I noticed her carrying three _bentos_ with a thermosand a paper bag containing apples.

"Eh, you too?!" Naruto cried, he himself holding a box of dango topped with red bean paste, as well as some small apples.

The warmth in chest slowly spread to my whole being, giving me an indescribable feeling at our synchronicity, each showing up with the other two's favourite eatable . Nonchalantly, I raised the two bowls of ramen and anmitsu with each hand and droned, "Breakfast?"

As we walked to a small, empty park I noticed bandages and scrapes covering Sakura's arms and legs. She walked with more confidently too, no doubt training hard herself.

Sitting on a wooden bench, we untied our meal boxes, turning out to be a serving of omelette rice, the egg cooked in our special way, sausages and green tea. We ate heartily, chattering all the while.

"So, what's with the new outfit? Kinda looks familiar. I hope it's not just your clothes that's changed, cause I'm gonna win the whole thing, believe it!" He pointed to me with is chopsticks, only for Sakura to slap away the rude gesture.

"As if Naruto! You've improved, but not enough to beat Sasuke-kun."

"Hn. Don't know about that." He'd put up a good fight at least.

"By the way, I'm training a lot too. Kakashi-sensei would drop by in the evening to give me some pointers, saying that the Hokage had given him the month off." Sakura poured green tea into three cups, holding one out for me.

"He'd leave me alone in the afternoon though." I pointed out.

"That's the time he gave me to be at the training ground." Sakura sighed.

"When I'm Hokage, he'll get everywhere on time, believe it! Even if Jiji just laughs at the idea," Naruto crossed his arms, put off about the Sandaime. Well, if the god of shinobi couldn't, what chance did Naruto have?

"Hn."

"Anyway, it won't be long before I become chunin as well! Just wait for me Sasuke-kun, I'll totally ace the next exams!" Sakura still had traces of her fangirlism, but thankfully I didn't have to see Naruto trying to hide his hurt from the corner of my eye anymore. That had been quite the contributing factor to making him aware of Hinata.

"Hn. If you do I might even call you Sakura-chan."

Pin drop silence. My teammates looked at me with such surprise that I felt flustered behind my stoic Uchiha mask. "What?" I deadpanned, seeing a mysterious glint in Sakura's eyes.

"I WON'T LET YOU DOWN SASUKE-KUN!" Then, as if snapping to her senses, the pink haired girl jumped and slapped her hands to her mouth, looking around to see some if anyone else was present. Blushing furiously, she sat back down. Naruto tried to laugh, but she cut him off with a glare, so he opted to pout.

I shook my head, hiding a wry smile behind my collar. Idiots, but my idiots. Thanking her for the meal, Naruto and I went our own ways to change into clothes that did not look like they belonged to a crash test dummy.

I checked my wallet and vault, only to find them empty. On the dresser was a handkerchief with the henohenomoheji, neatly folded. Eye-twitching, I decided that this apartment needed some traps and security. Perhaps Naruto could lend a hand.

Taking a long, hot shower, I changed into another set of the clothes, leisurely strapping on my equipment and being grateful for healing chakra, making a note to learn medical ninjutsu someday.

With just enough time to reach the stadium, I walked out of my apartment, taking in the sights of the village. Halfway through, I walked by a grumbling old man, clutching his back with a wheel barrow of bricks upturned in front of him.

"You boy, help me with this!" He pointed a wrinkled finger at me, wiping the sweat of his bald forehead.

"Me?"I asked, making sure.

"Yeah you! Hmph, kids these days. If someone older than me had asked for help, I'd have jumped up, saying ' _yes sir!_ ' What do they teach you nowadays? My back is giving out, otherwise I'd never ask for your help, you whippersnapper!"

Instinctually I raised my hands in placation, trying not to interrupt his rant. But my gaze soon began to linger on my callused hands, that been honed for fighting. Fighting to build a better place in this world in the future, but here I was, hesitating help an old man because I had an exam in which I use my strength in a circus of blood and steel, to attract money and profits.

What good is that kind of strength? But,

 _Little deeds of kindness,  
Little words of love,  
Help to make earth happy  
Like the Heaven above._

I smiled as I recalled the poem I had once learned in nursery. Something I had long forgotten about. "Sorry jiisan. Where do you need to go?"

* * *

"Oi bastard you're late! We were waiting for you, yours is the first match!" Naruto shouted as I ran into the stadium, where all the final round participants were already standing in front of Shiranui Genma. I hid the wince which guiltily reminded me of Gekko Hayate. The proctor in question gave me a questioning glance.

"You're well over fifteen minutes late, Uchiha." His senbon twitched, demanding an answer.

"Sorry, there was this old labourer whose back gave out and I had to help him shift pallets of bricks." I replied truthfully. Genma's senbon nearly slid out of his teeth, before he clenched it again.

Naruto gaped at me, unable to voice even one protest. Rock Lee, standing next to him, could not stop his youthful tears from flowing. "Now I truly see! I am your senpai in things besides the simple notions age and experience, Sasuke-kohai!"

I simply winked with my right eye. I wasn't trying to be Kakashi, not exactly his biggest fan after what he put me through, but it was alright. One step towards shedding the mask I was forced to wear. And if anyone thought otherwise, oh well.

* * *

Up in the stands, Asuma's cigarette fell out from his mouth. "What did Kakashi _do_ to that kid?"

"Is this another one his and Gai's 'eternal rival' things?" Kurenai, definitely _not_ on a date with Asuma, hazarded. Except for the vest and longer sleeves, the Uchiha wore the same outfit as his sensei. Even his collar was raised, mimicking a mask. She'd bet that if he took off his headband his hair would cover one of his eyes too.

Elsewhere, the surprise showed the faces of remainder of the Rookie Nine.

"Okay, like, not that I'm complaining, what happened to Sasuke-kun, besides that sexy new haircut? You know anything Sakura?" Ino voiced.

Sakura felt like saying that it was her who cut Sasuke-kun's hair, but stopped herself. It felt wrong, to use that memory in what would no doubt start a petty fight. Besides, she had already decided it was high time to stop this, and be worthy of wearing the Leaf symbol. "No idea. But now that I think about it, his behaviour is starting to look an awful lot like our sensei. He's changed a lot since graduation." Not that there was anything wrong with that, Sasuke-kun was still the same cool, handsome guy in her mind, but he was also a lot nicer, if still antisocial.

Still, she prayed he didn't start walking around reading a certain trashy book though.


	12. Chapter 12

Notice: I edited the chapter after rewatching the Naruto VS Neji fight in episode 62. Now with an 80% more graceful Neji, less ramblings of translated french poetry I should have cut out. I would also like people to be forthcoming with their criticisms, so I can learn and grow as a writer. ^^

Also, 1000+ follows! Is that normal? This story now shows up on the first page if one filters OC and Sasuke.

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 **Chapter 12: Byakugan, brawl!**

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" _It is not defeat that destroys you,it is being demoralized by defeat that destroys you._ " Imran Khan

* * *

"Dobe, I've got a bad feeling for today." I whispered to Naruto as the other competitors cleared the area.

"Yeah, what about it?" Naruto scrunched his face.

"I've been learning chakra sensing. Remember the forest?"

"THAT crazy lady?" I glared at his volume, resisting the urge to punch his face at this close distance.

"Hn. I felt her chakra signature when she was close enough. _Don't_ look now but that person is in the stadium." I wasn't quite that proficient in terms of range, but within my limits I could pick up on signatures even if they were being cloaked.

Naruto's eye widened to saucers. "What," he breathed, before his face hardened, his eyes determined. "Okay, teme, what do I need to do?"

"Find Maito Gai or any other jounin sensei. Tell them that whoever bit my neck is up there, pretending to be the Kazekage, or one of his guards," I clamped down on his shoulder before he could react. "Keep it low. _Go_." I whispered near his ear.

"Okay. And don't you lose bastard!"

I held up a hand and gave me five as he ran out, the only people in the stadium now me, my opponent and the proctor, who began to explain the rules in a concise manner.

"Try not to maim or kill each other. When I say stop, you stop. I'll do as see fit regarding how the fight goes. Otherwise, go nuts." Genma place his hands in his pocket casually. We nodded and turned to each other for compulsory pre-fight dialogue.

"Uchiha Sasuke, the genius of this year's crop. I've heard much about you," Hyuga Neji intoned, arms crossed and spine ramrod straight. "I look forward to our match, especially after your display of Heavenly Rotation _,_ a Main House in the preliminaries. How did you come by it?"

"Hyuga Neji," I replied evenly, a bit taken aback at how almost nice his formal words sounded. "While I appreciate your expectations, the fact is I have yet to see anyone from the Main House perform this technique, let alone copy it. It was quite coincidental. "

A corner of his lips almost tugged upward, as if pulled with pliers. I wasn't lying either, the only person I'd seen performing the _Kaiten_ onscreen was Neji, and he was a Branch member.

"I see. Such is your genius." Neji bowed his head ever so slightly, and I held back a sigh. I'm not a genius, this body just learns things easily.

"People may call me a genius, but I believe you are the strongest genin. That aside, what happened with Hinata-san?" I had to inquire about my future sister-in-law.

A scowl marred his features. "Hinata- _sama_ ," he almost spat, "and I had match in which I violated no rules. Unlike you, Uchiha, I am not a bird meant to fly, my fate is always to be second to someone like her. The destiny of Branch House members is subject to the Main House, and not something that can be changed."

"But did you belittle her efforts? Make fun of her dreams? Mock her for trying?" I asked tonelessly, and Neji looked at me like I was Naruto, or the village idiot. Same thing, actually.

"It seems your failure of a teammate has spread his influence to you, Uchiha. What next, will you endorse him to be the Hokage?" Neji sneered, while keeping his regal posture.

"Well, he can try." He I shrugged, thousands of eyes in the stadium causing me a bit of apprehension to be real self, compared to the apathetic Last Uchiha they were expecting me to be.

"And he will be wasting his time. I shall relay to you the same thing I tried to say to Uzumaki Naruto; only a select few shinobi are destined to become Hokage, and dead-last like him is better off applying effort elsewhere, than chasing a futile dream. If anyone stands a chance of becoming Hokage on your team, it's you. You are cut from a different cloth than he, Uchiha Sasuke."

I steadied my breathing as I took his words in. Had I not known the future, I would not be as confident in Naruto as I was now. Neji's context made complete sense to him internally, and also to many people who say beyond Naruto as merely a Jinchuuriki. They might acknowledge he'd be a powerful shinobi, but may demur if asked whether they thought he could honestly become the Hokage.

Even if I won this fight, it would change little. We were both geniuses. Neji could already, in his mind, accept a defeat from me.

"So you are basically imposing on him that because of some circumstances beyond his control, that which he can partially control, is also completely beyond the power of his will?"

"My own teacher seems to think that enough hard work can overcome any obstacle, but it's a truth of life that we are not born equal. Cruel as it is, there will always be a gap. He beat a kunoichi from a newly made village to become a finalist. I doubt any other opponent would have gone well for him, seeing as they are from clans." The Hyuga supplied.

I slowly shook my head. Neji's arguments made sense, but at the same time, he had limited information about dobe. In my own mind, with the memories of the show, I knew Naruto was also a genius, who was also the academy's dead-last.

In the other world, I'd also be sceptical of a kid who would go around saying he was gonna be a lawyer or doctor and then graduate at the bottom of his class. But then, Naruto lucked out in amazing places, such as stealing the forbidden scroll and learning the Shadow Clone Jutsu, the latter being dependent on his hard work.

"You'd be surprised at the depth of his capabilities. People can change, Hyuga. They can fight people's and their own perceptions of their destiny."

"I see you cannot be reasoned with, unfortunately."

"Hn. When the dobe becomes Hokage, you can say he was fated to be all along. Feel free to do the same when you lose this match."

"Fate has already decreed victor, and by your own admission of my strength, it will be me. I have a year of experience of you, and these eyes won't lose. _Byakugan_!" Without a hand seal he activated his bloodline and took his stance. His pupils shifted slightly to my right arm.

I made the seal of confrontation, activating my own Dojutsu from behind the contact lenses, a gesture my opponent reciprocated afterwards. Genma assessed us both, before calling out, "Begin!"

 _It's on._

* * *

Hatake Kakashi had thought that Naruto held the title of the number one most unpredictable ninja. Haruno Sakura was a girl talented girl that needed a push in the right direction, but he wasn't the right person for it. And then there was Uchiha Sasuke.

To him, the genius genin was like a mirror at first, but not quite. He was distant from his teammates, always training and reading by himself, choosing to work independently. Always trying to get stronger, always after a shadow from his past.

But on the first C-Rank, he had hesitated to kill. By all accounts of his Academy Instructors, sugar-coated as they were to hide a damaged mind, the Uchiha should not have hesitated at all. He himself was the cause of a lot of injuries and dropouts in his year, of those weak minded pre-genin that were unable to bore the brunt of his assaults during practice.

He also appeared to be manipulating Naruto, what with butting in with the one girl that had a crush on him and keeping him in a game of debt and repayment of favours, such as buying contact lenses and talking to him about whatever his small lectures from the Sandaime contained with knowledge of his own...until the Hokage had listened to a report and deadpanned that "Kakashi, he's trying to be _friends_ with Naruto."

And wasn't that a shock.

With Sakura, he would engage in intellectual discussions and critical thinking of a level that would be sometimes troubling, such as questioning the system of promotion and rankings, even the laws of Leaf and the Land of Fire itself. If he utilised his future political clout and built a reputation good enough, the Uchiha might even manage to disturb the status quo, especially with his frustration of 'excessive censorship' something he had called 'Freedom of Speech'.

And then Morino Ibiki had walked up to him after the First Stage with two neatly filled papers bearing Sakura and Sasuke's names and said that he didn't know Kakashi's genin enjoyed academics. That turned out to be an interesting conversation, especially the contrast with Naruto's blank paper.

So perhaps the Sasuke had been reading all those books not in an attempt for strategies to defeat his genius of a brother, but to actually comprehend. Although it was troubling the kind of works that found his way into his hands, several banned books as well, and not the Icha-Icha kind.

And of course, there were those troublesome words.

" _What in the name of White Fang are you trying to do?" "We all have our heroes."_

Kakashi hadn't known his troublesome little genin looked up to his father so much. Even now his heart felts pangs when he thought of the man he spent too many years trying to understand. But somehow, he also looked up to Kakashi a lot, emulating his style.

What the hell did he even see in him, besides veiled sadism and absent-minded excuses? One time, his cute little genin had come to Memorial Stone on an overcast day to throw an umbrella at the jounin haunted by the past and left without a word.

Aside from him copying Kakashi's looks, the boy had a depth no one had figured out. The fact that he'd had his Sharingan from the night of the Massacre was a mild shock. During his training, the silver haired jounin had pushed him as hard as possible, in hopes that his tired mind and body would be more vulnerable to probe his personality realized one thing, one baffling yet horrifying fact:

Uchiha Sasuke still retained a part of his innocence. The avenger persona, where everyone had assumed he'd sacrificed his childhood at the altar of blood and tears had become an act at some point, and he had proceeded to utterly fool them. Within the darkness, there was a spark.

And to be honest, one person like Naruto was enough on his team. Who'd ever thought _Itachi's_ brother would have pacifistic tendencies? ...

There was the question of where exactly his loyalties lay, considering his speculations about Itachi, which had sent the Copy-Nin's own mind into spin... A part of the jounin had already decided, that he was, against his better judgement, fond of his cute little genin. He didn't want him to die.

And so he ended up teaching the little shit some ANBU infiltration skills which he picked up competently, he wasn't Itachi's brother for nothing, because he just knew Sasuke would end up in trouble. His way line of thought wasn't the kind of dangerous he'd expected, but to his horror, much worse.

Kakashi could order him, but Uchiha Sasuke was the kind of shinobi that asked _questions,_ someone who'd challenge the setup of a Village or circumvent it if it became an obstacle to his pursuit of information...and it would only be a matter of time, it seemed. The only solace was he'd never harm his comrades; he was a much more open book than Itachi.

His attention was drawn to a non-descript, average looking boy communicating with Asuma, who said something which caused the smoker to get up and follow him. Intrigued, he shadowed them, leaving his hiding place from behind a pillar, using his Sharingan to read the lips of the boy speaking urgently to the jounin.

" _-you gotta believe it, the Kazekage is not the Kazekage! It's the bastard who gave Sasuke that curse mark thing! Believe it Asuma-sensei!"_

Was that Naruto? But he was in the competitor area, when did he make a shadow clone and transform it? Was this what Sasuke had whispered to his teammate before he left the area?

Damn it, his sensory capabilities were uncanny. But more worrying was what was being reported. Orochimaru was next to the Sandaime, not that The Professor would be quite unaware of the fact, but _damn_.

' _Itachi's little brother alright_.' Kakashi frowned.

* * *

Hyuga Neji was fast. It was no lie that he was the strongest genin in the leaf based on stats alone. While I was faster, considerably more so if I pushed, the issue was of stamina. I could only maintain my top speed for half an hour or so in a fight.

The Gentle Fist was a style that was hard to read, definitely on purpose to antagonize the Sharingan, for much of the muscle movement stemmed from utilizing core muscles and shoulder, the physical blows themselves supposed to simply be mere taps, judging by how relaxed Neji's tendons were.

But Neji had nothing on Kakashi.

I swept aside this left with my wrist, observing closely, and mirrored his finger tap. His strikes may have been 'gentle' but his chakra would shoot out in a spike equal to his fingers in length.

Neji showed no surprise and shoved a chakra palm strike towards my stomach. I spun 180 degrees to avoid it and threw out my right leg with a kick to his torso, which he immediately smashed to the ground. Slapping both hands on the ground I used a burst of chakra to double kick him into the air, even as he narrowly missed a tenketsu on my leg with his last moment tap.

 _Dancing Leaf Shadow!_

I let the bandages wrapped around my arms unwind, wrapping around Neji before he gained his bearing and with a push to chakra thrust us both towards the ground spinning, without attaining the maximum height.

"As if!" Neji grunted, releasing chakra from his body as we reached the ground and knocked me away with an upside down Kaiten, tattering the bandages the held him prisoner. Still on top of the other genin with my reaction time, I pummelled him down with an overhead kick.

His crash kicked up dirt, but it made little difference in a battle with Dojutsu users.

 _When will I ever get this move to work as intended?!_ I thought to myself as I shook off the ruined bandages from my hands. I wish had money for fingerless steel-plated gloves or shinobi disguise lenses but Kakashi was a stingy bastard.

Neji came rushing at me while I was seemingly lost in thoughts (I'd never make that mistake after the month with Kakashi), teleporting midway through his charge and almost slammed a bandaged palm into my navel. I bent at the back, dodging and then kneed him. He used his proximity to elbow my face, and damn that hurt, before I jumped away, leaving a fluttering explosive tag in my wake.

Neji quickly performed a rotation, placing a barrier of chakra between his person and the explosion, not even gaining scratch.

"I thought you said that was a Main House technique." I pointed out in the lull of the battle when he stopped spinning. "I think that counts as rebelling against your fate. Well done." I even clapped slowly.

A bit of killing intent pinged on my radar. Not deeming my remarks worthy of a reply, Neji rushed at me again. I threw three chakra imbued shuriken his way, causing him to perform the Kaiten again at the split-second notice. _Clockwise rotation._

Instead of waiting for him to slow down I held up a fourth shuriken on my palm and began to release chakra, using my other hand to shape it. The metal shuriken began to lift off my palm and spin. Rotating my body as a whole, I compressed the chakra in my palm in clockwise direction let it off at a tangent, normal to Neji's dissipating sphere of chakra.

His Byakugan must have caught it because the older genin restarted his technique. But before his rotation could reach its max speed, my pedantically named 'real spiralling shuriken' breached his shield. I was aware that anything spinning at a faster speed than the Kaiten itself could pierce it.

"You-!" Neji clutched his torn right sleeve, blood trailing down his taped arm.

"Usually, bandages go over bleeding areas." I pointed out cheekily.

"You blabber too much." Neji released his arm and launched a gentle fist strike with his bloody fingers, chakra spiking out. Reading his move, which headed for the junction between my clavicle and shoulder, I moved in knocked his arm away with my wrist, the other hand open to catch his other palm strike.

A close quarter taijutsu battle ensued and I matched Neji evenly, being sure to read and redirect, rather than lead the pace of the fight against a much more experience opponent. And then suddenly, Neji latched onto my right wrist with an iron grip, his right, taped arm ready for a barrage on my chakra points.

"As if!" I parroted, making a half-ram seal with my free hand for an extra bit of concentration and closing my wrist around his hand in a mirror move. Tendrils of lightning chakra erupted from my captive wrist and travelled up his arm. With a yell and jerk Neji pulled his arm, spinning me around with a burst of chakra.

I used chakra to gain a grip on the land skidding below me as he released me at a tangent and regained my bearings. With an almost apathetic stare I watched Neji get up on one arm, the other shuddering and twitching.

Neji came charging again and I maintained the distance, spitting out small fireballs and hiding shuriken within them. I let some kunai fly as well with ease, the movement now deeply ingrained, all weaponry seemingly futile in his charge as he closed in towards me in a straight file.

And then one chakra imbued kunai struck another, which in turn deflected the group of shuriken I had sent previously towards Hyuga now feet away from me, but in the same line. Shock ran across his features before he turned around, whipping out a kunai to deflect a shuriken heading towards his neck.

The previously boisterous crowd in the stadium, which I had completely forgotten about, seemed to hold their breath as the genius Hyuga with an active Byakugan, was almost struck in the back.

"' _These eyes won't lose'_ , was it?" I smirked confidently. He didn't need to know that it was partially fluke. I only manage to hit the back of a target post with a deflected shuriken half of the time.

I leaped back, releasing the spring of my right sleeve holster and let off another 'kunai' I had prepared on the way here. Neji's eyes widened. "That's-!" He twitched to the left, letting it sail past.

In some other realm, Naruto had used this technique on Zabuza. I had belatedly realized that I would be much too late and needed another to simply do a week's worth of labour for an old man who'd needed some rest, considering the destruction we were in for.

The shadow clone dropped his henge from the kunai. Near 360 degree vision could do nothing when he couldn't raise his twitching arm to defend. The Hyuga moved to his right, trying to perhaps start another rotation but my clone crashed his foot onto his left ear. I winced at that, praying he didn't get tinnitus.

Unlike me who was trying to conserve stamina, the already made shadow clone had no qualms about following up with his full speed, turning the battle into a one-sided slugfest.

I couldn't receive his physical exhaustion, after all, and a single hit to dispel was motivation enough. The resulting sight did make do a double-take. Perhaps Kakashi was right in saying that unless I felt like I was truly going to die, I underperformed.

The clone struck three consecutive kicks into Neji's stomach, before changing his leg, a mid kick which turned into an uppercut – it was fascinating to see the last minutes adjustments with the Sharingan in action – and then fully extended leg was brought down in an axle kick.

Giving no quarter the clone batted away Neji's weak attempts to strike back, infusing chakra strikes to disrupt his flow and concentration. A left right combo to Neji's chest, a backhanded slash which tilted at the last moment to block a kick, a sudden bent at the knees, letting Neji's injured arm sail over his head.

I could see the tomoe in my clone's eyes spin hypnotically, as he closed in for the kill. The crouch turned into a low kick which swept off Neji from the ground and using the momentum from the spin, the clone leaped upwards, fist clenched.

" _Shoryuken_!" Much like Naruto, this was a chakra-charged punch from below to the chin, only flashier. Neji fell to the ground, body limp and Byakugan deactivating. Taking no risks, the clone stood a distance away from him, waiting for a last stand. This was Gai's genin.

After five minutes Neji sat up and my clone dispelled. The older genin was bleeding from the mouth, and various bruises were blooming near his jaw and arms.

I felt a slight increase in my chakra when my clone dispelled, but not much. The jutsu had a set cost, after which the remaining chakra, if left over, returned to user alongside the experience points gained by the clone.

"You can still stand. Why aren't you coming at me?" I questioned when Neji stood staring at me.

"It seems I underestimated you. The clear victor is you." He bit out in clipped tones.

"Who was the one saying that it was my Fate to suffer defeat today?"

Neji crossed his arms, infuriating me. "I was simply wrong, as a matter of fact. No matter how much I pathetically struggle, my loss is sealed."

What angered me was that Neji could go on. My unpolished chakra strikes were painful, but unless I could put enough chakra behind them, they would never leave the penetrating damage I still felt stinging from areas Neji's fingers had tapped me.

Chakra of two people rejected each other, unless converted into a universally accepted form such as the Mystical Palm Jutsu. I couldn't deduce nor find the Hyuga's secret behind a true Gentle Fist strike. My clone could not have used much chakra to cause deep internal damage, especially with Neji's own chakra system moving to reject and repel foreign chakra intrusions. It's what made Kaiten a better defence than Gaara's sand armour.

Neji was trained by Gai. This much beating was next to nothing.

"Then why don't you tell the proctor that you forfeit?" I ground out. I was no Naruto. I didn't know anything else to say.

Neji raised his arm, the injured one slowly, turning to Genma. He said nothing though, even when Genma raised his brow in question. "Yes?" But the Hyuga didn't budge, making the minutes slightly awkward.

Slowly, I came to a realization. "You don't want to give up."

"Be quiet." Neji bit out. "Examiner, call this match!"

"Not until I hear him forfeit with his own mouth!" I yelled at once, and we locked ourselves in a staring match.

"My arm needs medical attention, my current reaction speed is visibly lower than yours; the way your clone moved showed that you held back by several magnitudes. How much more must you insult me before your pride is satisfied Uchiha?" Neji gritted his bare teeth.

"Pride? What will you do when you're against an opponent much stronger than me on a mission? When you're team is under threat? Give up?" I pressed childishly.

"Hmph. There would be no option but to retreat and regroup. The ones who shall survive are the ones destiny smiles upon. I know that all too well." His gaze shifted to the audience, to the Hyuga Clan head sitting with his younger daughter.

"So you'll give up, essentially?" My mouth twisted into a frown, quite unsure of how to use Therapy no Jutsu.

"Don't twist my words Uchiha. I will fight to my last breath until I inevitably fall. I don't believe a genin, as am I, can take down someone like a jounin at this point in time. Now call this match already." The last sentence was for the proctor, but he graciously turned his eyes to me to speak my piece.

"I know about the Caged Bird Seal, and I'll be blunt; The Main House members of Hyuga are idiots, except for Hinata-san. Just try and have a genuine conversation with the girl." I changed tactics and abruptly stated my words with such confidence that Genma lost his senbon.

"Of course, Hinata- _sama_ is innocent. But I'm curious, what do _you_ know of the Main House?" Neji quirked an eyebrow, but his jaw was tense. Really touchy subject for him.

"The Nidaime seemed to be confident that given enough time, he could find a proper seal to preserve the Dojutsu user's eyes from being used by anyone but themselves, and add a further design to control fertility causing hormones. The Hyuga weren't the only Clan with Dojutsu or bloodlines in Konoha, you know." I kept my stoic mask, even if the statement was sarcastic.

While I had little love for the Second Hokage, seeing his attitude towards my clan, I could not help but bow in the face of his genius. The seal for the Hyuga to preserve their Byakugan would not have been just two-fold in that you could also cause conception in the form of handseals or some other thing only the Nidaime knew, but that it made eye transplants futile.

In other words, it eliminated the chances of anyone obtaining an Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan like Madara, the sly bastard.

"I see... and so Uchiha trusted him to do so, being granted the formation of police force increasing their trust, creating no precautions and waiting for something never meant to be. And do you suppose the Head of the Clan would simply agree to such a notion, after years of their treatment of their Branch House? You expect people to just change?"

I deactivated my Sharingan and shook my head. How did the dobe even beat sense into this guy? "No, not everyone. Some people can't, to expect them to do so is childish enthusiasm, but you can never know unless you try. Trying and failing, that is acceptable, but not trying at all? That is guaranteed to never change things."

Neji stood there, face blank. "Are you quite finished?" his tone a clear indication that what I'd said went in one ear and out the other. One of those ears was hurting enough without me trying and failing to advise him.

"I think I am." I shook my head. I'm just not made for motivational speeches or the so-called Therapy no Jutsu. The next match was Naruto versus Kankuro in the same bracket, which meant I would have to fight him when he won...

Genma, who had acquired another senbon somehow, raised a hand in my direction. "The winner is-"

"One last thing." I butted in raising a hand.

"What is it _now_?" Genma was exasperated.

"Maa, I forfeit." I said, smiling to myself beneath the raised collar like my sensei. "Screw destiny."

Silence in the entire stadium. In front me, another senbon fell to the ground and the calm Hyuga poker face broke for a moment.

" _TEMEEE!_ " Uzumaki Naruto hollered and the dam broke, the audience raising its voices as well. The stadium rattled with the outrage while I simply turned to where the Hokage was sitting to check his reaction, and good old Hiruzen was blinking away his shock, before he guffawed.

"You..." Hyuga Neji spoke, low and dangerous. "What are you doing?"

"Giving up, of course." I offered no other explanation. Genma pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Winner, Hyuga Neji!"

I raised a single hand, before disappearing in a swirl of leaves. On the off chance the invasion didn't happen or was delayed, Naruto could fight Neji and do his thing.

* * *

Maito Gai would have liked nothing more than to stick by his most hardworking student, but as it was he'd rather provide company and comfort to the genin that had been unable to qualify for the finals. As it was, he watched the Kakashi's little genius with a solemn look.

"What the hell was that?" the young Inuzuka burst out when Neji. "He nearly got the drop on the Byakugan! Doesn't that thing see in all directions?" Or at least that was what Hinata had told the team.

"Shut up Kiba! Sasuke-kun is just that cool!" The young Ino pointed out unconditionally.

But Gai, otherwise offering his opinions and analysis easy to the young genin remained silent, even as the Nara, in his youthful observation, had not let go amiss. His Eternal Rival was raising a truly scary genin, to have figured out in one fight what took the Green Beast of Konoha several spars to deduce.

That the Byakugan was not infallible. All techniques had weakness, but that did not mean everyone could take advantage of those chinks in the armour. Giving one sideway glance to Shikaku's son, who merely shrugged in apparent disinterest despite his focused eyes, Gai turned his attention back to the match.

Kakashi chose that moment to appear next to him. "Sorry I'm late." Gai said nothing about having sensed him since the match started. He eyed the jounin, who said nothing, before giving him a thousand-watt smile.

"That's what Sasuke said." Choji pointed out, mouth full of chips. "Something about helping an old man on the way move bricks."

Kakashi blinked. "Huh. Good boy."

"And you didn't find any old ladies to help this time, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura pointed out sweetly. Said sensei sheepishly ruffled his hair. "You know me too well, Sakura."

The match went on, Gai carefully noting Kakashi's surprise at the spiralling shuriken when it broke through Neji's defence, and lack thereof when Sasuke used the shadow-clone henge combo, and when the boy's clone began a beat down rivalling Lee's speed without his weights. Some of those moves were from Kakashi's time in ANBU, Gai could tell, having sparred with him all his life.

That one kick to the ear was a nasty blow which was fully exploited. To Gai's disappointment, it had also knocked the fight out of Neji. Sasuke noticed it too and most youthfully tried to get him to try again, but he was not his superior officer like his jounin sensei, and could not get him to continue like Gai would, knowing Neji would trust in him to know the limits of a genin better.

Rock Lee couldn't help but cry youthful tears when his kohai defended those who worked hard, even if he was a talented genius like Neji himself.

"He's got a second element down, and his attitude brims with youth. But there's more to it, right Kakashi?" Gai grinned at his eternal rival. His colleague hummed thoughtfully.

"He's completely different from what he's like at the academy. I thought something was a bit different about him since the day he graduated." Shikamaru muttered. Knowing that others were waiting for him to elaborate, he didn't waste energy looking away from the arena. "When he walked in and the girls screamed at him, he nearly walked out. He's been ignoring them and walking to his seat for years. Instead of returning Naruto's glaring when that troublesome dead-last was sitting on his desk, he ended the staring contest first and then dodged him when the guy behind pushed him onto Sasuke's seat."

"Shikamaru!" Ino cried. "You're not a lazy dumbass?"

"I keep telling you that Ino," Choji opened another packet of chips.

"Tch. Troublesome woman."

The match went on with more surprises, to the point that Kakashi never took out his book. He didn't know where the genin was getting his knowledge about the Nidaime, but judging by Hiashi's pissed expression and the glances other Hyuga were shooting him, the Clan Head would like to know himself. Or strangle his cute little genin, which was _not_ happening. And then was the finale at last.

" _Maa, I forfeit. Screw destiny."_

"W-what?" Gai was so shocked he used the volume of a normal human being. The rookie genin were staring in disbelief, Sakura and Ino slumped to the floor, Shikamaru forgot to slouch, Choji's chip filled mouth was not moving, shy little Hinata had stopped playing with her fingers and Hatake Kakashi let out a giggle when he thought of all the people that had betted their money on the Last Uchiha vs. Branch House Hyuga match.

" _TEMEEE!_ " Naruto's voice provided a distraction for Kakashi to slip away before anyone, especially a pink-haired kunoichi could question his actions over the loss of her crush. Moments later, Sakura would realize that this meant she and Sasuke-kun could possibly take another exam together and be revived. _Shannaro_!

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So, some additions to the fight, completely omitted philosphical attempts of the therapy no jutsu, etc- Review?


	13. Chapter 13

And now for some answers, more mysteries! :P Thanks for the review turnout, all comments and critique is appreciated. Not much "Trollsuke" this chapter, but I'm pretending to do some very thoughtout plot shite...or am I?

A/N: Previously uploaded chapter 14 was basically an impulsively written plunnie, which I then labelled as a non-canon omake, and then simply took down with people still being confused.

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 **¬.¬**

 **Chapter 13: Trick or Trick?**

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" _The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why._ " ~Mark Twain

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 _Clunk!_

My forehead protector protected my forehead as I hit the edge of the threshold which led up to the stands. Dizzy, I wiped the sweat from my face using my sleeves. Before I could take another step, a hand grabbed my shirt and pushed me against the wall, jarring my teeth.

"Bastard! What are you playing at?" Azure blue eyes bore angrily into phlegmatic black.

"What am I playing at?" I stared back at Naruto, refusing to acknowledge that I had failed to notice his presence.

"Tch! Why did you give up?"

"There are more important things going on than an exam at the moment," I cocked my head slightly, wondering when he'd release me.

"Don't bullshit me! I know you don't want to be a chunin, but at least you can see it to the end!" Naruto yelled in my face. I tried to step back, pressing against the wall further.

 _Since when did he know?_ In. Out. _Breathe_. I told myself.

"Hn. You can let go now." His eyes searched my face, darkened like storm clouds, searching for something before he eased his grip. He stepped back, turning away until the shadows obscured his face in the corridor.

"Neji is a huge jerk, but I can't believe he lost to a coward like you."

"What?" I asked, sounding much more confrontational than my intention.

"Your hands are still shaking, 'genius'. Long sleeves don't hide that well."

It was my turn to slam the idiot spouting nonsense into the wall. With my trembling forearm pressed against his neck, I opened my mouth to speak but the blond head-butted me with his thick skull.

"I'm not afraid of Neji," I hissed at him, pressing the bridge of my nose. "The adrenaline still hasn't settled."

"And you're a liar too. Teme, you've been resting for many minutes now. Your clone did all the work," Naruto pointed out coldly, turning to walk towards the arena.

"Since when have I lied?" I was terse, trying desperately not to see the things this moron, Naruto had noticed. Why _now_ of all times?

"Heh, you just simply don't tell the whole truth. A half-truth is a full lie, bastard." He gave me one disappointed look over his shoulder that shook my core, playful blue eyes dark and tense, his mouth set in a rare frown.

I stood there, watching him step into the light of the arena without a single motion. I had thought that of all the people who underestimated, thousands that they were, I would not be one of them.

A presence at the other end of the path made me twitch, and Kakashi slowly walked into view. I said nothing to him, thinking hard and trying to calm my shivering fingers. But of course he noticed.

"I guess being scared shitless is a good motivator as any to learn what you need to survive." Kakashi remarked dryly, nose buried in Icha-Icha.

I tried to deny something about what Naruto had said, but ultimately, it did me no good to try and find a way around his cutting observations, but there was no way out. I _was_ terrified of the shinobi world, and playing with chakra aside, pitiful excuses kept me in it. The band on my head was more a shackle than a symbol of beliefs.

"Leave me alone, sensei." I sighed, feeling a lead weight in my stomach. Shoulders slouching, I walked past him, ignoring his hesitant hand rising to pat my head, then falling to his side from the corner of my eye.

As I climbed up and the rush of voices crashed against my ears, I distantly noticed that Kankuro had tossed his match, Gaara's bloodlust sweeping over to the spectators hastening his match with Rock Lee, despite Naruto's near tantrum down in the arena.

"Sasuke-kohai! What happened down there?" Lee's voice was being filtered from far away, even though he was standing next to me. I didn't answer his question.

"His sand is autonomous and protects him against all attacks without knowledge, his gourd is also made of sand used for defence and on his skin is a layer of sand armour," I muttered, trying hard not to think of Naruto's words, and another deeper voice, speaking in a language none of these people, these characters knew.

" _A half truth is a full lie, bastard."_

" _ **Are you lying to me, boy? Just like your mother-"**_

The taped hand landing on my shoulder jolted me back into the alternate reality.

"Are you in need of medical assistance Sasuke-kohai? You look very pale!" Lee was saying. I pulled away from him and walked ahead, not having met his eyes once during the conversation. "I'm fine. Don't worry. Good luck." My lips did not quiver, but my larynx was tight, straining my voice.

"Yosh! I cannot help but be worried when you say things like that, but I will focus and give my all on the match!" I absentmindedly raised a hand for him to high-five, and his departing reciprocation left my callused palm stinging.

A hollow ache was building up within me again, washing away the sounds of the world and enveloping me in a bubble that deprived me of all senses except this pain-not-pain. Slowly I placed the skin beneath my lips between my teeth and applied pressure. By the time I tasted metal and warm droplets dripped from my chin, hidden by my collar, most of the unwanted thoughts had disappeared from my mind, leaving annoyance at the self-inflicted wound and its pain.

I must have wasted the most important moments in time, because while people falling asleep was expected, Shukaku's howling from Gaara's throat was not. I rushed forwards towards the railing, seeing Gaara's own turquoise chakra stabilizing, while another red one began to exude from his body.

Until Temari, Kankuro in tow, landed on the field and touched Gaara. Instantly Gaara's own chakra flared and the red glow began to subside a bit, but refused to die down.

 _Genjutsu!_ I closed my slackened jaw as the sister grabbed her brother and escaped through the guarding ninjas, showing inhuman strength that only a distressed sister could be capable of when protecting her brother. _Somehow, it never occurred to me to just put the Jinchuuriki of the One Tail into sleep in a stadium full of people._

A small boy tugged at my pants, and asked very innocently. "Oniisan, why is mama sleeping?" Following his pudgy finger pointed to a woman slumped between the stands, a kunai in her back.

 _Must have been a retired shinobi, trying to escape with her child when Gaara was losing it._ Horror did not describe what I felt when I realized quite a number of civilians were awake. Was this the compromise Kabuto made when trying to put Gaara under sleep?I gulped, turning to the child to say something, when instincts kicked in and I whipped out a kunai deflect shurikens thrown by a Sound ninja.

One of those shuriken slit open the neck of the small boy whose name I didn't know. I took a breath, and then another, and more until I was shaking and choking, sweat breaking out over hairline and back. _What the fuck, what the fuck do I do? What have I been doing all this time?!_

More Sound soldiers targeted the civilians, their large enough quantity being a quality itself against better trained Leaf shinobi. I stepped forward, but the man I had been intent on helping was cut down. A couple was crushed between two earth wall techniques before I could reach them.

Retired and off duty shinobi put up a fight, but the civilians were hopeless, escaping out the exits secured by Leaf shinobi in pandemonium.

" _Sasuke!_ " Kakashi barked from somewhere near. "Focus! Six o'clock!"

His familiar presence and manner of sudden appearance kicked my senses into battle-mode, clamping down on the hyperventilation with diaphragmatic breathing, pushing my stomach out as I inhaled through the nose and kept my chest still. In the distance, purple walls blazed to life atop a building.

Sharingan flaring, I looked into the goading eyes of one Sound ninja who was gleefully hiding behind the backs of purple and khaki clad shinobi, targeting only civilians. Noticing me, he grabbed genjutsu-affected woman, her curved belly pressing against her loose dress.

The turbulent emotions within me were swept over by a wave of dark, simmering rage, smothering everything in its wake like lava. The Sound ninja plunged his kunai, mask stained with fresh blood wrinkling in upwards as he looked at me.

Something inside me broke.

"I will _rip_ you,"

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Yakushi Kabuto kept his eyes locked onto the last Uchiha, all his other objectives complete save for extraction. His was already a precarious position, but this was interesting scene cause his attention.

The Uchiha burst into action, using Shadow of the Dancing Leaf on ground level. One hand easily grabbed the wrist of Orochimaru's grunt from behind, pushing his own weapon into his back. Not even allowing the man to see hair or hide of the Uchiha, the boy used the tip of his kunai to incise his jugular. Not a drop of the enemy's blood fell onto the killer.

The spy narrowed his eyes behind the mask. It was hard to determine if the skill was copied from his ex-ANBU of a teacher, or learned from another source.

 _How did he know_ that _name?_ The pronunciation was a bit off, but Kabuto had just restored his punctured lung during his confrontation with his master in the forest.

Who was Uchiha Sasuke, and why did the first thing he say to Kabuto's face had been the word 'Nono'? He couldn't help but wonder.

* * *

 _Don't think. Don't blink._

Any flash of purple I could find I charged at, launching blows and steel with reckless abandon, in an animalistic drive to do make sure these bastards were stopped. If stopping them permanently meant they had to never see the light of the day again, then so be it.

Two of the cowards came at once, deeming my enraged self a greater threat than the unconscious old pair, probably someone's grandparents, they were about to tend to.

 _There's no going back for me._

A flurry of brows from the front and back I was unable to dodge at once, before kunai was plunged close to my spine, off by a few inches from both the vertebral column and my right kidney.

Ignoring the pain, I dropped to the ground and released chakra from the leg to spin an uncontrollable low kick that hit them both, before I wrenched out the kunai from my back, forging it through his sternum into his heart before only the handle remained protruding from the purple shirt. The other guy got in the corner of my vision and I burst chakra from the palm, smashing my elbow into his nose which drove into his brain, if his limp fall was any indication.

I had struck my own funny bone and now my arm was full of pin and needles, the joint creaking dangerously and making noises akin to a paper being torn. Another presence with killing intent leaped towards me. I confirmed the purple uniform before launching into a small Kaiten, repelling his attack.

The hemisphere of chakra knocked the murderer into the air, and without missing a beat I let off a trio of shurikens at a tangent. One spin later I came to the sight of him bleeding out on the floor, shuriken embedded into his neck alongside his Adam's apple.

I noticed with a detached amusement that I was finally facing the correct way at the end of the Kaiten.

"Sasuke," A blue uniform landed near me. I tried to speak, but found it pointless to force my throat. Kakashi-sensei went on without skipping a beat. "Mission, A-Rank. Follow Naruto for details."

I stood there, rooted as I finally took stock of the world around me. In the distance, four purple walls could be seen. _Damn it!_ Ignoring Kakashi's instructions I leaped through the battle, sticking myself to the ceiling and running upside down.

Accumulating more injuries than ever whilst absconding among ninjas, I crashed onto one knee near the three ANBU watching helplessly as Sandaime engaged Orochimaru, their chakra throbbing in frustration. If it weren't from my brash movements, I would have probably been killed by friendly fire had I used another teleportation to reach them.

A plane mask with a dull green quarter, another a tiger mask clad in an off-white overcoat, and the last some sort of bird. They seemed to debate amongst themselves as I watched the battle between the teachers and students with dwindling hope.

 _Why the fuck did Tobirama invent Edo Tensei?! Was he that disappointed in the ending of Romeo and Juliet?_

Truly, my mind is most eloquent when under copious amounts of stress.

If Sandaime summoned the Shinigami, it was over _._ Another small voice in the back of my mind scoffed at the line of thinking, pointing out that Hokage-sama may not even be able to prevent the summoning of the Fourth this time.

"Do you know the Chidori?" Tiger-mask asked me. I nodded, only now looking down to see my blood-stained hands. The weight in my stomach grew heavier, but I didn't feel like throwing up. Yet.

Making the seals I walked forward, pouring every bit of chakra I could into my hand. It barely took any time for lightning to engulf my hand, and a few seconds more to shape it better.

 _Raikiri!_

With a raw scream I stabbed my hand into the purple barrier. The attack bounced off at first, jarring my bones all the way up to my shoulder but I pressed on, and not even caring if I lost my arm. The arm that ended with hand stained with the blood of humans.

"HAAA!" I lightning pressed into the barrier which curved around it, even as it was pushed towards the inside. It refused to budge. I reached into the recesses of my mind, pulling on every last drop of chakra that I could gather, but it wasn't enough. "Solider pill!" I shouted with a flash of inspiration. The ANBU complied swiftly, and I crunched the pill as soon as it was tossed into my open maw.

Immediately I could feel my chakra replenishing to nearly half my total capacity. Panting harshly, I moved my left arm began to rotate the crackling lightning chakra into a conical shape with pointed tip. The frequency of the chirping sound increased, augmented by a whirring undertone. My hand began to burn from inside out.

" _Raiyari_!"

The barrier cracked a bit just when I was about to give up, and I yelled louder, rejuvenating my efforts. And then trees sprouted within the closed off battle, shaking the very roof we were all standing off. A few shingles shifted beneath my feet and I slipped as Shodaime grew a goddamn forest several hundred feet above the Earth.

 _Well, shite._

But this was the Leaf, and through the power of teamwork, the ANBU besides me managed to hold me steady. They weren't my friends, but the desire to not let the gesture go to waste spurred me onwards and lightning began to touch the barrier, cracking it when it couldn't be bent anymore.

"In the name of the Moon, I will right wrong and triumph over evil! That means you!" I shouted at the barrier, pretty sure that inability to feel my hand any longer meant I had burnt through all my nociceptors and the thought of having induced permanent damage made me transcend all previous bullshit ever spouted and made unleash this masterpiece.

"That was a soldier pill that you gave him, right?" Blank with a green corner-masked ANBU questioned Bird-masked ANBU. There was no time for a reply as the barrier cracked just a little bit. My chakra pool was emptied seconds after the barrier was breached.

But two ANBU were able to replace their selves using the single exposed line I had managed between the cracks, shattered logs from the trees of the Shodaime's forest tumbling down the slanted roof into the stadium below. The roof was still standing despite three Hokage waging battle over it, amazingly enough.

My arm on the other hand, was red and raw, my palm bleeding from welted and bubbled areas. Oddly enough, I felt more annoyed at the prospect of having to live as a paraplegic than simply dying.

Relief washed over me at having made one damn change that mattered. 'Jiji' would probably be able to do better now...I slumped over, exhausted by my efforts and the searing pain losing to haziness in my head.

* * *

I woke up in complete darkness, moving on instinct to stand up. But I was already standing up. Better put, it was like there was no direction, and my movement sent ripples of white against the darkness.

I settled for deciding that my feet were down, and my head up. No sooner had I gained orientation did I translucent hand reached out to me, becoming me. I nearly followed, but the red beaded bracelet on the arm stopped me short.

Purple skin, black marking akin to a cursed seal, the hand disappeared past the wrist into the darkness.

I stood there petrified, not even the sound of my heart beating in my ears as with only the hand of the Shinigami as company. Was I dead? I wouldn't even doubt it. The current darkness did seem a bit nice a place for all the innocent people I had let die at the hands of Orochimaru's men.

 _ **Come, soul-eater**_ _._ That was no dialogue or voice. It was not the words that beckoned me; no mere language could cover the sense of understanding that ran between me and god of death at that moment. I may as well have thought the words myself, and did not question them.

Slowly, I almost moved to take the hand to drag me to hell where I belonged, but a voice called out to me.

 **It is not your time yet, young shinobi.**

A faint tug at the back of my head, but I was aware that unless I complied I would not be dragged elsewhere. With a longsuffering sigh, I aborted reaching for the Shinigami and gave in.

At once it was light, but it was not harsh on my eyes. In front of me, hovering above me was a man levitating cross-legged. Despite the white expanse, he stayed shrouded in darkness, only a pair of purple-ringed eyes staring at me. Either he was drenched in paint, or physics was being physics was being unimaginably violated.

I opened my mouth, raising a finger, thinking of something to speak, but closed it. Things had stopped making sense a long while ago. Running a hand through my hair, a very clean hand, I turned to the figure still not revealing his appearance.

"You must teach me this whole 'shadowed in bright light' thing, Rikudo Sennin-sama." I said at last.

"I must admit, I was not expecting that response," The shadowed figure said. Those Rinnegan bore into me, and I felt utterly naked. "Nonetheless, there are things you must be aware of, now that the Shinigami knows of your existence."

I frowned, feeling guilt for the relief I felt. "I'm not dead?"

"Perhaps... You would not be here were your soul the property of death's domain. As it is, you have a very rare gift."

"Is it the ability to travel through dimensions without bringing about the end of the universe as we know it?" I asked, inspecting my body which was still the image of Uchiha Sasuke, the clothes still torn and bloodied rags. I winced at the bloody gashes which had torn through my mesh and exposed my liver, stomach and slit collar parallel to my windpipe.

"Quite so," The Sage of Six Paths did not restrain the amusement in his voice.

"Not what I imagined the title 'soul eater' would hold, this is also the wrong anime." I muttered.

"I'm afraid you will not like the truth of those words." Hagoromo's tone was solemn. I waited for him to drop the other shoe.

"The price of you being here was the soul to which your body belonged. Tell me, how has your ninjutsu been?"

"Relatively easy. Chakra manipulation feels as easy as breathing sometimes." I answered, not sure where this was going. The only hint that the bad news was due was the minor softening of those legendary eyes.

"So that's how it is, young shinobi. Pure chakra itself is very easy to manipulate, which you seem to have an abundance of. What do you suppose is the purest form of chakra?" The Sage went quiet, face emotionless. He waited as I connected the dots.

Why was I so powerful when it came to ninjutsu? And what would be chakra in its purest form? Chakra had colours, and if moulded perfectly I suspect it would show its identifying hue externally instead of plain blue, not just inside people's bodies. If I was moulding chakra to be pure i.e. with a hundred percent conversion to ratio during usage then my lightning jutsus would show it, much like the chakra of a Tailed Beast turning the Rasengan purple or the cursed seal's siphoned nature energy turning the Chidori grey.

Closing my eyes and reviewing every piece of chakra theory I knew, I came to the conclusion that it was the type of chakra I possessed, not whatever I was doing to it. And while my physical limits were apparent to me, my spiritual ones were an amalgam of my own and Sasuke's...

"Soul eater..." the words held no humour now, just devastation. I swayed for a second, before falling onto my knees and hands, lowering my head until it touched the ground.

"I've been using his soul to perform ninjutsu all this time...he never left, I just wrenched and used his life-force without even thinking...no wonder I could access all his memories and knowledge, if it was like accessing his 'chakra'...

"Can I go back to the Shinigami now?" I asked, looking up at the Sage of Six Paths, but his gaze held no sympathy.

"There is no time for idle drivel, young shinobi." He said, not unkindly. "Now you know, and you must move forward, for that is what a shinobi is."

"I don't want to be a shinobi!" The burst of chakra with my words rippled the wind through his robes as I stared him down, chest heaving up and down. "I don't want to kill people I know not without full reason! And even then, how can I even trust what constitutes as full reason by myself, you batty old codger?!"

"I see, but time is short." The Sage stated calmly, and a soft smile decorated his face. I spluttered at his dismissal, tears stinging my eyes. "But you have power, and thus the responsibility. As I once did, even if it meant to raise that strength against a woman who to this day holds a piece of my heart."

It was like I'd been doused with cold water when I realized that Hagoromo Otsutsuki, this wrinkled, weathered and _ancient_ man had a mother once, whom he had to seal after she went and bollixed the world up.

"I...I don't know what to do." I wanted to get away and go back to some place where exposure to war was in books and news at best, where the chances of watching a slaughter occur before my own eyes. I clenched my teeth, pulling at my hair with my hands. " _I hate myself_."

"My advice is to find people who don't; but I fear the cost of you staying here increases the more time that passes." I looked up, about to ask just what he meant but the Sage, still clad in shadows, moved his staff touched it to the centre of my forehead.

"Carry on young shinobi. I have faith in you, that you will be ready when we meet again. That is, it is _me,_ and not another." He said cryptically.

A warm sensation surged through my body, dozens areas on my body where I had been hurt tingling, especially my arm. Any and all questions I had were lost when I felt myself being pulled from some place far, far away.

My thoughts were an absolute mess. The Sage of Six Paths had refused to take no for answer. And so I cursed him, one considered holy and outright worshipped in this world, with every expletive I could think of.

And then it all went dark.

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Welp. Release the flames. Sasuke is a scared Hufflepuff.


	14. Chapter 14

Hello! Long time no see. This chapter isn't long, but it's enough to let you know I'm not dead, this story is going the way it was intended to before I got this crazy idea of playing dimensional ping pong. Still a good idea, but too non-sequitur for the readers. Thanks to all those who reviewed and kept messaging me to not abandon this story! It is not.

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 **Chapter 14: Sasuke Styles**

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 _"In our age there is no such things as 'keeping out of politics'. All issues are political issues and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia." -George Orwell_

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A faint beeping registered into my ears, followed by the halting of hushed whispers. Eyes still closed, I verified the chakra signatures of my teammates before opening my eyes and sitting up.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura threw her arms around my neck, sobbing in relief.

"Hey," I croaked, trying and failing to not lean into her warm presence, feeling like utter shite. One of my arms was covered in thick bandages and the other was hooked to an intravenous drip.

"Oh, you're up Sasuke-kun." Yakushi Kabuto walked into the room and picked up my chart. "We're out of tags that absorb lightning chakra from the body, so try not to let whatever happened to you occur again, alright?" He smiled disarmingly I found something very wrong with this picture until it clicked.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Said I icily, glaring at his Leaf forehead protector. Kabuto acted taken back by my hostility. "W-Well, I'm an intern and they needed all hands available, after the invasion."

"...I see. Thanks." I pasted a weak smile on my face, playing along. Kabuto nodded and exited. At least the hospital seemed intact, from what I could judge by the glimpse of the corridor as he shut the door.

"Sasuke-kun, are you okay?" Sakura asked, face barely a feet from mine. I pressed two fingers on her forehead and pushed her back, creating an appropriate distance. "Sorry," She admitted sheepishly.

"I'm fine," I wiggled the fingers on my bandaged hand, wincing. "Where's Naruto and Sensei? What about Hokage-sama?"

Her face fell, brilliant green eyes cast in a shadow. "Sandaime-sama fell in battle, paying his life to seal away the soul of the traitorous Sannin Orochimaru. I heard some ANBU managed to break into the barrier he was fighting him and lent support at the cost of their lives. Um, the small good news is we recovered something Orochimaru had, from what I heard Ino say.

"As for Naruto, I, Neji and Shikamaru went after the Sand team after they tore a path through the village. I think your apartment was destroyed. But anyway, Naruto is fine; Kakashi-sensei was in the hospital for a day before he was called on duty again." Sakura informed me.

"Neji went with you?" I asked, very curious.

"Yeah...I think Naruto's fight with Gaara changed his thinking a bit." I sighed at that, before thoughts drifted towards my last conversation with the blond. The moron was of the belief that shinobi are protectors only, whereas I was more concerned about the things one had to do to protect others.

Or maybe the moron was just angry that I eliminated the probability of us having a battle with spectators, he was weird like that. I took little pleasure in training, besides meddling with chakra.

He wanted to be chunin, I did not, and Naruto realized that. I didn't think it was a good thing to be a ninja, and without experiencing Zabuza, he was still a tad clueless about being a shinobi. And with how callously I had given up, not even having a decent reason like Shikamaru other than not wanting to fight, no one in their right mind would promote me and my mindset to chunin.

Which was what I was after, considering no one really expected much of genin and regularly interacting with officials taken much more seriously than the smallest rank would bring into question my borderline seditious beliefs. Kakashi-sensei was _very_ lax with me.

"How many days was I out?" I asked Sakura.

"Three. Lots of people came to visit you," People translated to girls, from the slight frown she hid. "And Kakashi-sensei acted like he didn't want you to know he came to visit."

"And you're telling me this because?"

"Remember the time we were delivering a coffin to Gokawa Town and sensei told the deceased's son the 'package' had arrived and we had to attend the whole funeral waiting for him to apologize but he never did?" Sakura deadpanned.

Ah. That was one awkward mission. It didn't help that once he made a mistake he took out his Icha-Icha and ignored it as much as possible, committing further faux pauses and making us die from second-hand embarrassment. Kakashi-sensei was funny at times, but him being his flippant self rubbed civilians the wrong way on many C-Rank missions, which were probably never given to him for good reason.

"Ah. I see. Just tell him to forget it, or if he can't that I got a concussion and can't remember anything past helping an old man move bricks."

"You actually did that?" Sakura blustered. "I thought you were trying to be the second coming of sensei!"

I paused at that. On second thought, it did seem like that, what with the taller collar and supposedly lame excuses, but it wasn't him I was subtly emulating in reality.

"Are you tired Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, still sitting on the bed.

"A little," I replied honestly, feeling the flow of chakra within my body. Something felt wrong with it, a foreign element, but every time I focused on it, it slipped out of my sensing. I glanced at my cursed seal, and it seemed almost lighter. What was going on? "I could do with some food."

No sooner were the words out of my mouth was Sakura unwrapping a bento, filled with rice and spicy curry with bits of chicken, the smell causing me to salivate. I blinked at the sight.

"I'm going to assume you made this yourself." I said, taking a pair of chopsticks with my left hand.

"You can eat with your other hand?" Sakura questioned, trying to hide her sulk with a pout. I couldn't help but briefly snicker at her face, freezing my face into a neutral mask when my teammate snapped her head to look at me in disbelief.

"You've seen my shurikenjutsu, it should have been obvious I'm ambi-dexterous. Why are you asking?" Said I wryly, watching her flush slightly.

"Nothing! Eat and regain your energy." Ignoring the pain of the drip in my arm, I steadily moved my hand to place food in my mouth and chewed slowly. The salt was a bit strong, but it wasn't unpalatable. The girl was content to watch me, and I was too shy to ask her to join given there was only one pair of chopsticks.

"Sasuke-kun, why did you give up your match?" Sakura asked after I was finished eating. "You effectively gave up your chances of advancing with your actions. It was very unprofessional." She bit her lip, only slightly nervous.

I contemplated for a bit before deciding to be honest. "I don't want to advance. Disrespectful as that was to Neji, I didn't feel like continuing." Not to mention the fact that it didn't really sink in the reality of what I had to do and was doing until the invasion...and I certainly couldn't hold myself to not procrastinate issues so that when I had to face them, I wouldn't jar myself.

"I see," She smiled a bit. "I used to think you being silent was very cool, but now I think you're very introverted. Not that it's bad! But if something is bothering you, you can tell me..."

I nodded slightly, taken aback at just how sane and quieter she had gotten over the months. But like the idiot I was, I did not tell her of the images that suddenly came to my mind of people murdered while I stood frozen in the midst of battle, abruptly shoving them away.

I wanted to sleep. I wanted her to be there, yet I wanted to be alone. I wanted lots of things, none of which I could have. I shook my head and stared at my bandaged hand. Each every drop of my chakra, to break through the barrier set by four of Orochimaru's elite. And they were of the lower totems of the pole come future enemies.

When things were in routine, like training or missions and the month with Kakashi, it was not bad. But when it came to spontaneous events, my mental fatigue escalated much quickly.

Even now I was of the mind to stay in this hospital bed for a month, rather than a week like I expected. My teammate excused herself shortly afterwards at the sound of another bed being rolled into the room after the partition sheet was drawn. Things had to be going terribly if even VIP rooms were being shared. At least it wouldn't be much lonely any more.

With a sigh I let my chakra run free along my network, surprised at the rate that it was healing. I could even channel to my right hand beneath the bandages, but decided to not push it, closing my eyes instead for a nap.

Three days later the bandages came off my hand, which was healing a bit too quickly, but that's chakra for you, I'd hazard. The nurse on duty had barely had time to state her warnings before clenched my fist and let loose a stream of English cuss words.

" _Sasuke-san_ ," The man said, exasperated. "Do not use your hand for now." I nodded with gritted teeth and he went away. Naruto took the one opportunity I was in pain to show his face out of nowhere.

" 'Sup bastard! How're you doing?"

"Absolutely peachy, you glass hammer."

"Doesn't look that bad," he peered at my hand. "Get well again so I can whoop your ass for giving up the exam. Congratulations on not getting promoted." He grinned, and I wondered if he had a bipolar disorder or something. No one right in the head ventured into the life of a shinobi like he did.

"You're welcome," I replied dryly. "Please get promoted and out of my sight."

"Is that anyway to talk to someone who came to visit?"

"I don't know, is gloating about beating a Tailed Beast a good reason to visit someone?"

"Hey! Who told you that?" I gave him a look. "Oh right, probably Sakura-chan. But everyone else I talk to seems to think Neji and Shikamaru took Gaara down. I can't wait until they get discharged so they can tell people the truth."

"They're in the hospital?" I was not aware of this. "Sounds like the condition of people who fought a Tailed Beast." Naruto seemed to get the underlying message, and his eyes widened slightly. Here he was, hale and healthy going around with the tale of having fought Gaara while the Hyuga Clan's genius and Nara's heir were hospitalized.

"I guess I'll tone it down a bit, Hehe. It's not like I wanna talk about it or anything, but people seem to forget mentioning that I was even there."

"Hn. You know that's not unusual." I pointed out.

"Yeah, but usually Jiji is there to set them straight if it gets out of control." He said sullenly and I sucked in a breath. Right, that had occurred. "Thanks for trying to help him, though I don't know why you did it."

"Maybe I wanted revenge on Orochimaru for what happened in the Forest of Death," Said I. "But enlighten me nonetheless to what happened when you went after Gaara." And he narrated a string of events very similar to cannon, Shikamaru stayed behind, Neji and Sakura got knocked out and Naruto remained the last man standing before he used his summoning jutsu.

"That's more or less what I'd expect from you. Let's fight some time?" I added the afterthought as a compliment.

"Eh, unlikely. Maybe if you were the same as the bastard you were in the academy, I'd be more inclined to believe you."

"But I'm clearly not."

"Yeah."

"Hn."

"Well, see you. I've got stuff to do, unlike you."

"We both know you'll go to Ichiraku before you think of doing any work." I spoke wryly, knowing that if Naruto had free time in the afternoon, he would definitely go there.

"At least I'm not addicted to apples." Despite being confined to this bed, I feel like I can gather the strength to clock him. I am not addicted! They are essential for a daily diet.

"Of course not. Anything healthy must repulse you."

"I wonder how it's like to eat food without having sense of taste, bastard. You even enjoy the stuff they serve at hospitals." Naruto scrunched his face, as if talking about the school cafeteria.

"Hn. Are you going or not?" I asked,

"Sheesh, I'll get lost now, happy?" Without waiting for a response he opened the window and jumped out of , bloody ninjas...

 _And now I sound like the doctors who work here_.

* * *

Within a week, and perhaps due to me being an elite Uchiha, I was healed enough to help in rebuilding and stop being a drain on Konoha's healthcare system, my right hand notwithstanding. While Chidori was a technique safe to use normally, the tenketsu in one single hand are not designed to bear the brunt of the body's entire chakra.

The gossip in the sterile corridor surrounded the unconscious two genin who had bravely faired against the greatest threat to the village, the Hyuga having been discharged earlier than the Nara. Knowing Shikamaru, it was no coincidence his stay was prolonged. I frowned at the casual dismissal of Naruto, whose role had gone from knocking sense into Gaara to acting as support for the two clan shinobi until the arrival of Jiraya of the Sannin, who summoned Gamabunta.

Suspicious, way too suspicious. I could not make head or tail of this series of events. Was Jiraya really present right now? I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

I ran into Yakushi Kabuto at the hospital's entrance. His face showed worry, and I wondered what machinations he was up to now, with Orochimaru fully sealed. My mind wandered to Anko, who still held a piece of his soul as a back-up option.

"Have you seen Naruto-kun?" He asked.

"Why do you want to see him?" I asked, raising a brow.

"Oh, it's just me and my colleagues were discussing the battle with the one-tailed beast and he overheard something that was not what it seemed like..."

Ice slid down my spine as he continued, his words being filtered from some place far away. He was part of a group of shinobi sharing an altered version of events which were alienating the Jinchuuriki of the village.

This was what he was up to while I had been confined to my bed for a whole goddamn week. Schooling my features, I resisted the urge to bruise his innocent, puppy-dog eyes.

"Jiraya-sama is in the village?" I asked instead, regrouping my thoughts. With sheer luck I remembered I was missing my contact lenses and couldn't use the Sharingan to read him.

"Oh, no one has actually seen him, but a shinobi of his calibre, you never know." Kabuto fanned his hand in dismissal.

"Hn, I wonder what we call the Sannin now, with Orochimaru gone for good." There was a slight twitch of his lips, but I could tell the statement was a thorn in his eye.

"I hope so, because like I said, with shinobi of their calibre, no one knows."

"Hn, you may as well be right." I rubbed my curse seal for effect, looking very nonchalant. "Well, keep up the good work. Maybe they'll finally promote you, now that your talents needed more than ever before." I smirked lightly.

"I'm not sure about the ever before part, because there have been worse scenarios, but thank you for your kind words." He smiled and went inside the OTD building I had exited from. By the time I exited the gates of the hospital, another presence was next to me. Not that I knew.

"Yo!" Kakashi-sensei greeted and I jumped out of my skin. "Hmm, you've gotten sloppy with all that bed rest."

"Sensei," I replied, my body tense and ready to spar. His appearances all too much like his training sessions. "What brings you to this part of Konoha?"

"I heard that my cute little genin, who had disobeyed orders on the battlefield and ran off while I was busy too catch him, was finally discharged."

Oh right, that had occurred. I gulped, already dreading what punishment he had in store for me.

"Don't worry," Kakashi-sensei patted my head. "I didn't report you. Too much paperwork, which I would have to be in charge of for the moment." His shoulders drooped, and I noticed the circles beneath his bloodshot eye.

"Hn." I said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Instead, as of this moment, you are tasked with helping all the cooking squads with whatsoever they need to keep this village fed and sated." Kakashi-sensei said, eye curving in a smile. His aura darkened. "You will obey me this time," I wilted under his oppressive stare, squeaking out a weak 'yes'. Suddenly the day cleared, and it felt like a storm had passed. "Later, my cute little genin."

And he body flickered away. I sighed; cooking squads didn't seem to bad an exchange for disobeying a direct order.

* * *

Or so I would have thought, until the reality of being surrounded by mostly by girls and women of all ages, civilian and shinobi, with the knowledge that I was under orders to assist them in anyway whatsoever, hit me.

No, I don't think your daughter and I make a good match. Yes, shinobi lead dangerous lives. One I would never have considered taking before being forced into this predicament. And for the love of Rikudo Sennin, who keeps feeling my hips?! I'm pretty sure it's the kunoichi, I have my fucking Sharingan and I can't catch them. No, I will not turn off my bloodline limit is not that cool, if it was I wouldn't getting so violated. Please, respect the memory of your dead husband no matter how much I remind you of him!

"Sasuke-kun! What are you doing here?" Sakura, my guardian angel, my salvation showed up, accompanied by a gaggle of civilian girls tasked with delivering food and drink to shinobi on duty.

It's amazing what hours of being on edge and the drawbridge effect will do to a man.

"Save me." I whimpered from where I stood, ass pressed firmly against a wall.

"Sasuke-kun, are you alright?" She walked up to me, raising a hand to my forehead but I clasped it in both of mine.

"I'll do anything, just make them stop."

And that is the story of how Sakura and I ended up on a date later on.

* * *

Fun Fact: George Orwell is not his real name.


	15. Chapter 15

HEYO WASSUP LONG TIME NO SEE I GOT INTO UNI IT'S VERY CRAPPY EVEN THO RANKED HIGHLY GOD WHY DO I GOTTA STUDY WHEN IM NOT A STEM BUT HUMANITIES STUDENT CLEARLY *ahem* Anyways, update after long time so no mysterious quote, chapter title takes care of that. Instead we get a summary thus far.

Edit 16/8/2018: Restructured the flow, removed the over-the-top crack elements for future points.

* * *

¬.¬

 **Chapter 15: Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango, Dango, Daikazoku~**

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* * *

 _A boy from the real world is shifted into the body of Uchiha Sasuke, has access to his memory but greater chakra control and slowly begins to dismantle his anti-social persona while keeping up training in case Sasuke's spirit returns to his body. On the side he goes to the library to study lots of history and develops an addition to apples. They get no Wave mission but Sasuke is much friendlier and willing to work with his team, their first C-rank has combat but no death with a team from an unknown village. The chunin exams roll by, they run into lots of insects and animals larger than life, run into Gaara where Sasuke has to use every bit of his creativity to keep them alive while trusting on Naruto to save their assess via the wildlife of the forest and Sakura retrieves a scroll for them from the remains of the team killed by the Ichibi Jinchuuriki. They later run into Orochimaru an hour from the tower and Sasuke still ends with the Cursed Seal, is transported to the tower and then channels his anger by honestly telling his teammates what he thinks of them under the influence of the curse mark, gets in to a preliminary with Tenten, barely wins by the use of Kaiten, gets into a chunin exam final with Neji after being trained to hell and back by Kakashi with whom he shares that he thinks there is more to the Uchiha Massacre that meets the eye, but throws the match because his threshold for the ninja is life catching up to him. In the invasion he loses it and kills, and a curious Kabuto notes that he uses and ANBU killing style which had been taught to him by Kakashi. During the fighting Sasuke ignores Kakashi's orders and instead opts to free the Sandaime from his prison with Orochimaru, breaching the barrier with Raiyari, the spear of lightning and an evolved form of chidori with spatial manipulation. But alas, he succumbs to the chakra exhaustion and the Sandaime is still not saved, although word on the street is that Orochimaru is gone for good. And now the village is being reconstructed after Naruto, Neji, Shikamaru and Sakura took care of Gaara in the invasion, although Naruto's role isn't being credited as much, and Sasuke suspects it has something to do with Kabuto, who still has not been outed as a spy. Now, onto the chapter!_

* * *

"You've gotten soft, Kakashi." The jounin moved not an inch as his Eternal Rival stood beside him, gazing out the recently repaired window of the Hokage's office. The masked interim leader – who else would bother after Jiraya-sama shoved responsibility off his own shoulders- eyed Gai, before going back to observing Uchiha Sasuke.

The boy was running around, seemingly so glad to be rid of the girls that plagued him that he stopped every street to lend someone a hand. Kakashi would have thought it reminiscent of Obito, had his genin not been mindful of the time and accounted for delays.

"Why don't you help him out directly? He is clearly losing motivation to fight as a ninja, and quite different from Shikaku's sprog. But look, how happy he is to simply help civilians out!" Gai pointed to the sight of the last Uchiha lugging sacks of flour on his back to give a reprieve to a middle-aged trader's donkey of all things.

"He doesn't want to be a shinobi but...he already has a clear reason to fight for." Kakashi groggily shifted his posture to keep view of his student, who was now clearing rubble alongside Sakura to create an area for children to kick a football around. He couldn't see his expression, but he'd wager the Uchiha was hiding a smile behind his collar as the little boys and girls began their game. Kakashi turned around and picked up a scroll from the latest batch.

"And what would that reason be?" asked Gai, sure it must be something other than revenge.

"He fights so that one day the fighting can end." Like a student who found exams abhorrent but still studied for them, Sasuke was continuing to wear his hitai-ate.

"Oh."

Anyone who believed that would live their whole life being a shinobi regardless, unless they gained enough strength to follow only what they wanted to follow. Kakashi would take what he'd get.

* * *

If Sakura had ever wanted to be strong enough to protect me, my current predicament should have alleviated some of her self-doubt, considering the stalking girls she managed to scare off.

In return, all she had asked for was a date, which could be provided even if she was to be ultimately friend-zoned. There were bigger concerns at hand, such as the Akatsuki, which now stood a chance to gain Kabuto as an ally considering Orochimaru was sealed for good.

And so I had spent that evening spending time with her as a 'date', granted that we ended up running into some civilian kids and playing football ( _not_ soccer) with them.

There was also the fact that beyond making Itachi aware that I wasn't, couldn't kill him, I had no concrete long term plan. It all relied on my depending on him to generate something, immature as it was. We were mentally about the same age, if not in wisdom.

Night had fallen long ago, and I procrastinated finalising my sleeping arrangement. The mission desks were operational, and I had around seven hours before I was due to report at dawn. Dinner had been an okay affair, us genin were generally favoured with portions considering our age and shinobi status in general.

We were in the spotlight of children who wanted to be ninjas in the future. Another generation with a high percentage of orphans rivalling the Kyuubi Attack.

I lay spread-eagle on the Konoha Hospital's water tank, staring at the stars. While I had received praise aplenty for trying to save the Hokage, Naruto's role in defeating Gaara wasn't the getting the response I had imagined. That blond idiot needed every bit of good rapport he could get, hopefully something he could possibly mitigate by bringing in the Fifth Hokage.

I had warned my team about Kabuto, going as far as to suggest that he could be a turncoat. After all, Orochimaru couldn't have snuck in multiple platoons of men in here without detailed insider knowledge, could he? They thought me weird, but Kabuto did seem a bit strange to them as well.

Kakashi-sensei was hard to even see nowadays, but when he did show up I did my best to be extra polite. They all assumed the Copy-Nin sent his protégé, who had surpassed his technique, on the sole task of assisting the ANBU. I was damn lucky no one was actively targeting the Leaf ninja outside that purple barrier, confident as they were in its infallibility.

It was thanks to Kakashi-sensei no other shinobi of the Leaf was aware of that I really should be on probation.

Actually, for all I knew an ANBU could be set aside to watch me. Closing my eyes, I manipulated my breathing and began to extend my chakra. Ever since I had gotten out of the hospital, my chakra had felt different, and not in the sense of the knowledge that I was using another soul as fuel.

It felt different to manipulate and quite sluggish. Easier to flow, but harder to stop. I formed a half ram seal to help me as I tried to sense any chakra signatures around me. I did found many presences, genin and chunin, but none like that tightly coiled presence Kakashi-sensei would have when trying to train me.

"You'll catch a cold if you sleep here, kukuku…"

 _What the hell?!_ I jerked up, kunai in hand and chakra flaring. A figure stood in front me, the moonlight spilling over the back of his ANBU silhouette. I tried to sense his chakra, but got no response. My lips parted in surprise. At this range, even Kakashi-sensei couldn't be completely undetectable.

"What's wrong Sasuke-kun? Have you seen a ghost?" The sibilant tone came out mockingly. The man lifted his hand slowly, causing me to tense, and reached for his mask, prying it slowly.

I came face to face with a distinct, amber eye, the pupil a slit. He moved in the blink it took me to activate the Sharingan, my left hand captured in a vice grip against my back.

"Calling for help?" Orochimaru casually twisted my arm, making me drop the emergency flare I had palmed from my pouch. With a silent stomp he rendered the red cylinder useless. "No need to cause a ruckus Sasuke-kun, everyone is so busy nowadays."

"How?" I asked, incredulous. I may not have personally witnessed Orochimaru's demise, but the whole village, from Jounin to civilian believed him dead. "How are you alive?"

"Kukuku…when did I ever die? I am beyond mortality." He brushed a finger below my eyes and I deactivated my Sharingan in case he felt like plucking them out. _Creepy wanker._

"Then why are you here?" I asked, forcing my voice to be calm. My heart was in throat, and beating rapidly.

"Not to cause trouble. Oh no. Once Konoha builds itself back up, I shall take pleasure in destroying it once more. But I'm here to make you an offer."

"An offer?" He let my arm go, but I was under no delusion of not being at his mercy.

"Not really." I felt a needle pierce my neck and then it went dark.

I blinked, hand smacking against the prick on the surface of my neck. There was disorientation, like I had been substituted with something, but not much.

"Sasuke!" A hand landed on my shoulder, pulling me into the moonlight again. It was Naruto. "What happened? My clone got popped instantly."

"Where is he?" We were crouched behind a hospital bedsheet, mere metres away from the water tank.

"He split pretty damn fast."

"Shit. That was Orochimaru-"

"What?!"

"-and I could not sense him, so we need to move!"

We leapt away from the dark roof as one, making haste towards the half-repaired Hokage tower. The path to it was well-lit for both shinobi and civilians, and we got stares from the random ninja as we sprang towards it.

A non-descript lady was sitting on the steps outside the main door, enjoying the night air instead of sitting indoor at a desk, her brown hair down but still in uniform. We ignored the bottle of sake next to her and her groan as we landed.

"We need to see our sensei." Naruto panted, and then took a deep breath and stood up straight. "It's important."

The chunin on duty cocked an eyebrow, "He's not here kid."

" _Genin_ Uzumaki Naruto, not a kid. We came into contact with Orochimaru." I stepped forward as she took a lightning-fast sip from her porcelain bottle.

"Uchiha? Oh God. Tell me it's a joke?" She took another open swig now. Flashing through seals she made a regular clone. "Follow the bunshin. I'm not dealing with sleep-deprived jounin and telling them the traitorous son of a bitch got sighted."

Despite her grievances her clone led us to a room through multiple doors and well-lit corridors and dispelled outside an ordinary door. We knocked at once.

"What is it you guys?" Kakashi-sensei's tone was half-way between a yawn and a groan. He was without his vest, gloves and forehead protector.

"We encountered Orochimaru less than ten minutes ago on the water tank at Konoha General Hospital." I stated, arms by my side. The jounin's half-lidded eye sharpened.

"Report." He ordered.

I recalled the encounter as best as I could, with all the relevant details and then Naruto picked it up on his part. He had hidden moments before the 'ANBU' body-flickered behind me, sensing something wrong and silently made a clone.

"My clone began making seals for a kawarimi the moment I saw that guy pull something out of his pouch. And then he disappeared." Naruto finished. Kakashi-sensei looked towards me.

"And you couldn't even sense him…alright. Go to sleep. Dismissed." We bowed and took our leave.

"Man, I can't really sleep now." Naruto whined.

"You're telling me." I sighed. "We still need to sleep. Work tomorrow." We walked in silence down the streets towards the shelter located for the genin near the Akimichi Clan compound.

All was still and I pondered how at this time of the night, a city like New York would be bustling, never going to sleep. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts of the world left behind. Forget the skyscrapers, even the roads in Konoha were made of dirt.

The genin camp soon came into view, and I spotted a few genin up on watches, three individuals and one couple on each corner of the camp, all unfamiliar to me. I nodded to the boy standing guard as we entered, and he responded in kind.

"Oh, I forgot why I came for you in the first place." Naruto pointed to a tent among a settlement of nearly a dozen. "Shikamaru told me to go get you."

"What for?" I asked, running my eyes around the still camp. Considering the bivouac arrangement some on guard duty were having as I witnessed in some areas, these were downright luxury.

"You'll find out. We're sharing the same tent, heh," I could tell he smiled even though it was dark.

"Sure." I uttered. For some reason I had been expecting to find myself lying in rows of genin I did not know. Silently we raised the flap and entered into a suspiciously quiet tent, everyone asleep.

Kiba, Chouji, Shikamaru, Shino. Six people to a tent. No room left to spare, and a little stuffy considering the weather. And then Kiba cracked an eye open. "Oh, it's just you guys. Get in."

And suddenly, everyone was up, pushing the sleeping bags to the side and creating a bare space in the middle of the tent.

"What's going on?" I asked and everyone shushed, even Shino. Kiba lit a small lamp, illuminating the inside of our tent just so that no light would be reflect outside from the fabric walls surrounding us.

"Keep it down. Very down." Shikamaru replied drily as he placed a scroll in the middle, on the bare ground and unsealed it.

A small metal pot with swimming with ramen noodles, pieces of chicken, mushrooms, leeks, salad leaves, fishcakes, a few shrimps, boiled potatoes and spices appeared.

"What is this?" Said I most eloquently.

"A training exercise to prepare and eat a midnight snack without anyone knowing, believe it!" Naruto whispered, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth slightly like a retard.

"Ah damn, it's gone cold." Kiba hissed. "Guess channelling chakra to the pot like we did to leaves back in the academy was useless?"

"It was never warm to begin with, whereas the leaves at least got burned." Shino quipped.

"You know, technically, shrimps fall into the class of insects. Can you still eat them Shino?" Naruto cut in.

There was silence as we processed this fact. Shino pushed up his shades, still in his coat rather than the easy attires everyone else wore.

"You will not persuade me to give up my portion of the hotpot, Uzumaki Naruto."

"What about the smell if it does start cooking?" I learned closer to inhale the scent of the mixture. Had it been boiling I'm sure my mouth would have been watering.

"Oh. Don't worry. I can just inhale the scent and keep it from spreading. Useful when cooking in a forest." Chouji piped in.

"Is that some Akimichi family art?" I asked, curious.

"Nope, just talent," Said Chouji as he noiselessly opened a packet of potato chips and ate one. I stared, Sharingan activating to copy whatever this noiseless eating jutsu was. Imagine being able to eat whatever you wanted inside a cinema without getting out.

"Uchiha, if you would do the honours of cooking it for us?" Shikamaru asked, leaning back and pointing towards the pot with his chin.

I looked at the Nara in an utter deadpan.

"Of course, you shall be entitled to the largest share. Why, you ask? Because even though you have no food to add, your task requires the most challenge and effort." Shino ejected. I switched my deadpan to him, before sighing.

While we had been directed to sleep and have lights out past 11PM, no one was actually going around to check whether the genin were asleep or not. I doubted whether us cooking past midnight would be looked upon favourably but, what is life if not an experiment?

I flipped through the seals for the Earth Wall Jutsu, using a small amount of chakra to raise four small posts the size of Pringles tube to lift the pot off the earth. Next, I simple made the tiger seal, channelling my chakra for a small stream of fire and directing it below the pot with control as Shikamaru closed its lid.

While generally field cooking-ware was engineered to heat up and cool fast, it was another thing to use a fire jutsu to cook a hotpot. But I had extensive practice with blowing fire, and following chakra theory could make it even hotter than normal.

The day had not required heavy chakra usage on my part and I was easily able to provide a flame for more than five minutes, small but nearing white-hot as I increased my focus. Sometime in between the lamp had been blown out so when I released the technique we were left in the dark with the noise of the bubbling broth.

"How is it?" I asked, wiping the sweat from my forehead. The tent had become very warm. The lamp was re-lit and Chouji removed the lid off the steaming pot.

"Whoa," He said in a hushed voice, stirring it with a pair of long chopsticks. "Just perfect. You're very good at blowing fire, Uchiha-san."

"Thank you?" I was never good with compliments. At least I could still use my chakra as intended, even if it did not feel as it usually did.

"Well, dig in everyone!" And of course, how had I forgotten. Boys didn't just decide to share things equally. I did not even have a pair of chopsticks as everyone attacked the food, using everything we knew as ninja to not make a noise.

And then I noticed Kiba using two pairs of chopsticks, one to feed Akamaru who had until now been hidden in his sleeping bag.

"I thought I was going to get the largest share," I spoke to myself quietly and sighed, shaking my head. Although I didn't exactly need to eat, my nutritional requirements taken care of, I did felt a little advantage had been taken of me.

"Hey," I looked up to see Naruto, holding a ramen cup filled with at least everything from the hotpot. "Quit sulking, I saved ya some." Like the tsundere he was, he was looking away from.

 _Heh, cute._ I resisted the urge to pat his head.

"Really?" I took the cup from him, noticing that it was some limited edition flavour with a sketch of the Hokage Mountain on it, probably saved for that very reason by this admirer of village leaders. And he was using it save food for me, who clearly lacked the desire to compete for food.

"Thanks, Naruto." I smiled a little.

"Hey, are you sure that's Uchiha? He's smiling." Kiba pointed with his chopsticks at me, mouth full of chicken and noodles.

"Of course he is, he's not that much of a bastard anymore." Naruto retorted. I grabbed the chopsticks he'd been using since I still didn't have any of mine and began to chow down.

Kiba pretended to listen hard, cupping a hand to his ear. "Naruto defending Sasuke? It doesn't seem like the world is ending outside."

"What if you're trapped in a genjutsu to make it seem like everything is normal while the world _is_ ending?" I gracefully ate my food, while tired of pretending to be an Elite Uchiha TM, the smooth manners instilled into his memory were just useful.

"Holy shit, he even tries to joke!" Kiba said loudly, before realizing his volume from the way everyone stared at him, even Akamaru. "Sorry." He apologized sheepishly.

Soon the food was finished and trace of everything removed, and I laid down in a corner of the tent, Naruto in the sleeping bag next to me. The others were chatting lightly, but tired and fed to the brim, all I could do was fall asleep.

* * *

Three days passed and the free time I had considerably increased. Orochimaru was not sighted again, and strictly speaking me and my team were not entitled to any information regarding him. Nonetheless I sensed an ANBU present near me at all times from that night onwards.

And now I couldn't even fault the security for the snake Sannin breaking into the Forest of Death, if I couldn't even sense his chakra when he was right in front of me if he willed.

I was also required to go to Konoha General Hospital for a follow-up, regarding the chakra sensations I had described to the medic the last time I was here. And there I met someone unexpected.

"Uchiha."

"That's my name." I said, not caring in the least how I appeared to Neji.

"I see you still lack sanity."

"Awuboll." Said I, like I had lost my mind. Neji raised a brow at the word.

"I amend my statement. You've lost more sanity."

"Well, sorry for my display at the chunin exams, but yes, what I do nowadays is not very conducive to my sanity." I cupped my chin pensively.

The element of surprise was the only thing I had on him during the exams. But as the saying went, a surprised ninja is a dead ninja. And ninjas do not play fair.

And wasn't that a morbid thought. Somehow, I think Kakashi-sensei snuck things into my training without me being aware of it. Well, utterly unaware it seems.

We stood outside an examination room of Konoha General Hospital, both of us in for a follow-up.

"Regardless of the state of your mind, I would like to tell you that I now understand what you failed to make me." Neji spoke. "And as for why you acted the way you did, I received an inkling from Uzumaki."

"That I am, in fact, barking mad?"

Neji sighed. "That for all your prowess you dislike combat and speak the strangest dialogue when under pressure."

I paused, considered it, then nodded. "Correct."

Not the best of coping mechanisms, but I'd take what I could. It also took the edge off not knowing whether Neji wanted another match with me or not. While I felt that Neji would win in a spar, I'd find it easier to end the match if we fought to kill.

"So, what brings you here?"

"Just a follow-up to waste my time. I am completely fine."

"Sure." Said in a tone not unlike the doctors here, the ones well-versed in dealing with ninjas. Damn ninjas, not thinking that just because they can train and feel fine, doesn't mean they should.

"Can I ask you something?" Neji said. I sucked at reading his poker face so merely nodded. "How did you learn the Kaiten?"

I stayed silent, considering the pros and cons of telling him as such a thing. After scanning my environment for any suspicious chakra signatures, and deciding that the hospital had to have greater sensor as security, why not I thought.

"I practiced releasing chakra from every tenketsu I could. And from deflecting a kunai with chakra, I know chakra in motion is virtually impenetrable, granted its's faster that whatever it comes into contact with."

"You were able to do that? Release chakra from every single tenketsu?" Neji's curiosity showed on his face.

I nodded. "Why, is there a problem?"

Neji activated his Byakugan, looking around. Keeping it active, he replied. "While the technique is classified as bloodline technique for the main house, I deduced that it is, in fact, a Hiden technique. The reason I asked was because, on average, the Hyuga clan has more yin chakra than yang in their system. I thought it impossible for someone outside the clan to be able to perform it."

After that he said nothing, but the wheels in my mind spun.

Two souls in one body, one becoming chakra. According to chakra theory a soul could be considered as a purely yin life-force, which would fulfil the prerequisite Neji just hinted. Was this what enabled me to perform the Kaiten? Would someone like Tsunade be unable to perform the technique, if they tried?

On the other hand, it would also explain why the Hyuga focused less on elemental ninjutsu, which would require them to balance yin and yang forces to perform a technique flawlessly, as 'One should expect of the Hyuga'. Hn.

A higher proportion of yin chakra. Would this allow me to obtain and perform clan techniques that weren't limited by DNA?

My musing was interrupted by a nurse beckoning me inside the examination room. The medic was quick and cursory in his examination of me, noting that my chakra network showed signs of growing recently, so the increased production was cramping my style.

Yes, the medic did say those very words. Given an all-clear I left quick, telling Neji I'd see him around with little intention of actively doing so. I wonder if all the training I kept up made me anti-social, whereas before I was just selectively social.

Even my friendship activities revolved around training with Naruto and Sakura, and then listening to their conversations while we worked on D-ranks or ate at the familiar places around Konoha.

Frankly, this invasion was the best thing that ever happened considering how much I was interacting with other people. Or perhaps that was due to the fact that I was using every opportunity to defend a certain idiot whenever he cropped in conversations around Konoha, fading as they were.

The differences in our social status were sobering. I was no older than Naruto yet adults would give my word a lot of weight. Speaking of which, I hadn't seen the blond yesterday or today. Had he gone to fetch Tsunade with Jiraya?

 _Oh. Buggerations!_ I turned around and hurried to the receptionist's desk. It turned out be a young woman I knew, who wore a ponytail. Usually the sight of all ninjas annoyed her but I made sure to follow the procedures whenever I came to the hospital, and this allowed me a little favour from her and the staff in general.

"Hello, I have a query Mimi-san." I asked, putting on a sweet smile.

"What is it, Uchiha-kun?" Mimi asked in her slightly gruff voice. _But_ _'kun', not 'san'. Heh._

"I was wondering if my sensei landed into the hospital somehow. I haven't seen him since forever." I said, and didn't have to fake any concern.

"I can't tell you that, Uchiha-kun. Better luck next time." I tried not to pout. Her tone was a bit teasing, and Kakashi-sensei did not have any fans at the hospital either so what was I missing?

"Can I know whether he's here or not please?" I used the magic word. Mimi gave a small smile.

"Nope, your sensei isn't here." She said finally, rubbing her throat.

"Oh. Thank you Mimi-san." I replied. "And would you like some water?" I asked, considering her voice and unease when speaking.

"It would be appreciated," She sighed and handed me an empty canteen. "Can't leave the desk, you know."

And so I filled her canteen with water from the nearest filter, and then ran towards the most famous dango shop in Konoha. Not finding my targets there I switched my course towards the tributary of the Naka river which passed through Konoha, a stick of delicious dango in my mouth.

I had all me weapons in stock, and I had no idea what I was going to do. But like hell would I wait and let Kakashi-sensei be tortured for hours in another dimension. Spotting two cloaked figures in the distance, I took one brief to put on my new, shinobi-grade contact lenses on and activated my Sharingan.

Out of nowhere Asuma and Kurenai appeared, backs facing towards me and I suppressed my chakra. Some words were exchanged and then one of the figures took off his fancy hat.

I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, so I decided I would make Uchiha Itachi question life more than he already did. And of course try and slip him the scroll I had prepared months in advance.

I body-flickered past the two Konoha jounin who jumped in surprise and stopped short of the Samehada smashing into my foot, by miracle ducking a kunai which snipped my bangs as it whizzed by.

 _Holy shit._ Chakra drained from my leg, leaving behind a pain like muscle sinew being stretched. _Must stay away from Samehada._

On second thought, rushing into a bunch of jounin was not a good idea, especially when the surprise was squandered.

"What the fuck?" Kisame put eloquently, lifting his sword with ease again.

"So, what brings you to Konoha, niisan?" I stared into the impassive face of Uchiha Itachi.

"Niisan?" The swordsman beside him grinned, displaying sharp teeth. "Is he yours, Itachi-san? Doesn't seem very bright."

"My head was poked a lot when I was a child." I deadpanned, keeping a handle on my breathing.

"Sasuke, leave right now." Kurenai's voice was hard as steel. "You stand no chance."

I blinked. Did they expect me to go rushing at him like some sort of deranged madman? I knew Itachi more than I knew the people he'd killed. And while I couldn't quite claim to love him, I was very fond of his character.

"What we are seeking does not concern you." Itachi spoke and I heard his voice for the first time. A measured tone, not meant intimidate but dismiss. An average ninja would have been riled in an instant. "And you are still not worth killing."

"See, he won't kill me." I told the jounin behind me confidently, who were still in perpetual surprise.

"I gotta say, I like your brother Itachi-san." I stepped back, vary of the sword. Kisame's killing intent flooded my senses, eliciting a small gasp. "Been a while since I've seen such stupidity."

"Thanks?" I replied weakly, keeping my chakra ready to escape.

"This is a waste of time." Itachi said and then he vanished. A minute push of chakra, and he wasn't there. I used body-flicker and the substitution, and the next moment I was flying away from a kick to the stomach while Itachi dispassionately removed his kunai from the log taking the fall for me. In the same movement he parried the shuriken Kurenai had thrown at him, seemingly without effort.

I gulped.

Itachi's kick had made contact with me in the last few milliseconds of me switching places with a log and then he proceeded to push a kunai into said log.

This display of his skill begged the question of ' _How the fuck was I supposed to slip him the message I want to deliver?!_ ' Exchanging anything with him was treason, and not something I wanted to have witnesses for.

I was already committing insubordination by refusing to obey two jounin, never mind the scroll I had hidden up my sleeve. Instead I decided to advice the engaged jounin. (Which could be a pun, heh).

"He can cast genjustu via eye contact! And even _I_ can see through yours Kurenai-sensei!" And then I turned to the other battle going on. "That sword absorbs chakra and shaves, don't let it touch you!" I shouted from the side-lines.

"Why is he still here?" Asuma grunted, trench knives out and everything. All things considered they were holding up against two S-rank missing-nins well.

I had my excuses of course. The administrative block was in the direction I was running to, so I could chalk it up to looking for Kakashi-sensei. Mimi-san would also help with an alibi. Along with some dango I had hastily bought.

"Don't make eye contact if his Sharingan changes shape!" I yelled further, not sure how much was getting through the battle. I palmed a kunai and kept it handy, waiting for a chance to provide back-up.

I felt a familiar signature coming into my proximity, divide into two, and released my chakra to fall into the water. I felt more than heard Kakashi-sensei curse as he and his clone stealthily approached the battle, failing to take me away from it.

Itachi noticed the new arrival as well. He surreptitiously formed a clone behind Kurenai, who was saved by Kakashi at the same time his clone countered Kisame, who had managed to injure Asuma's arm.

I watched, entranced, as the two former ANBU captains fought each other. Itachi in action was unlike any other shinobi I had witnessed. His chakra moved so precisely and fast it felt like it was already there. It wasn't even funny.

To use an analogy, it was as if in the time it would take me to gather the bricks and cement, Itachi would have already built a wall. But Kakashi-sensei was no slouch either, although the pace and techniques he kept up was dwindling his time.

He met Kakashi-sensei blow for blow, dodging every hit the jounin tried to land on him, dominating the choppy rhythm of the fight more often than not even as Kurenai tried to ensnare him in genjustu, layering her illusions to no effect.

The power of the Sharingan was chilling. The nuke-nin Uchiha kept both jounin at bay, fighting his enemies within their own specialities.

Then, he managed to trip Kurenai-sensei, his water clone beginning to release small amounts of chakra I caught with my Sharingan. Kakashi-sensei realized it as well.

We moved as one, me covering the distance in a body flicker as my teacher was forced to turn his back to Itachi, tackling his comrade with him.

But it wasn't enough, the clone's chakra was spreading to their heels.

There was an explosion, and then pain.

* * *

Uchiha Itachi had never expected to be called 'niisan' again. No, not after the sins he had committed. And never in a million years had he expected for Sasuke to have turned out as he had, staring him down calmly after a foolish body-flicker that made him wince (internally).

"Niisan?" The swordsman beside him grinned, displaying sharp teeth. "Is he yours, Itachi-san? Doesn't seem very bright."

"My head was poked a lot when I was a child." Sasuke drawled, but a bead of sweat trailed down his face, betraying his nervousness. Itachi's index and middle finger almost twitched at the memory, but he managed to quell the movement even if it has hidden within his sleeves.

The elder Uchiha took in the appearance of his younger brother, not having seen him in four years. He was glad to note that the genin was healthy, although his choice of clothing matched his own in a subtle, utilitarian sense. Both their collars were long enough to hide their faces, and sleeves hid their hands alongside weapons they might hold.

The people around him would pin it more on Kakashi-senpai though, just because he was iconic for covering his face.

 _A coincidence, or calculated misdirection?_

Most of all, it was his eyes.

His eyes still some innocence, and Itachi almost wanted to reach out and poke his forehead again, like his younger brother was a child once more.

But then, near his left shoulder was a disturbance in his chakra. The rumours of Orochimaru going after his brother had turned out to be true after all, if the suppressed cursed seal his Sharingan picked up was any indication. And Sasuke had their bloodline limit activated and hidden behind contact lenses. Itachi felt a little pride. His brother truly wasn't like the rest of his clan.

(Had Sasuke heard this he would have deadpanned with "I am the rest of your clan.")

"What we are seeking does not concern you." Itachi said neutrally. He needed Sasuke to scram. "You are still not worth killing." He added with a stare, wondering if he should activate the Mangekyou for effect.

Instead Sasuke whipped his head away from him, which was good, because sincerely didn't want to harm his brother. Instead the genin turned to the jounin behind him.

"See, he won't kill me."

Itachi blinked. That was quite a reversal in personality. And sadly, as much as it tore his heart into a thousand pieces, he would have to rectify it. The boy was downright optimistic. Had Sasuke somehow fallen prey to drugs? The thought made his blood simmer.

"I gotta say, I like your brother Itachi-san. Been a while since I've seen such stupidity." Kisame released a rush of killing intent at his foolish little brother that would have had jounin shivering. Sasuke gasped, but didn't fall to his knees, quickly getting a handle on his breathing, smoothening the flow of his chakra. "Thanks?" the foolish little brother retorted meekly.

The elder Uchiha suppressed the urge to raise a brow. He was not expecting this level of control. This sort of composure wasn't something chunin, even some special jounin had.

 _Enough,_ Itachi told himself. Sasuke needed to kill him in the future. He did not need to be calling him 'niisan', or looking at him those innocent eyes with a subtle smile on his face.

"This is a waste of time." Itachi said and then he moved to teach his brother a lesson he would surely take to heart. But Sasuke was faster than he gave him credit for – how developed was his Sharingan? – and reacted to Itachi, using body-flicker to jump onto the river.

Itachi copied the movement without skipping a beat and whipped out his kunai to impale the jounin who had substituted with his brother. Metal met wood and Itachi fought down a smirk.

Little Sasuke had been the one to replace himself with a log, it seemed.

Then Kurenai attacked him, trying to ensnare him a genjutsu. But prior to her he had been _the_ genjutsu specialist in Konoha and while creative, and was by no means threatened by the calibre of her illusions. They didn't call him ' _Sharingan no Itachi_ ' for nothing.

Itachi felt his former senior in the distance catching up to them, and it was about time too. Even glad for it since he was behind Sasuke and would drag him away from the confrontation.

Except life rarely went the way he wanted, and Kakashi failed to do as such. They fought with taijutsu and ninjutsu, the Copy Ninja sometimes co-ordinating the illusions with Kurenai seamlessly. These ones were harder to break, since they involved a Sharingan as well.

But multi-tasking was his forte, and Itachi formed a Water Explosion Clone to drive off Kurenai, priming it after the Kunoichi began to fight it like a regular clone.

And then the Akatsuki member found it difficult to keep a straight face once more as his brother jumped into the fray, protecting the jounin with a Hyuga clan technique.

He wasn't even certain one could copy a Hiden jutsu, but you learn something new every day now don't you? Sasuke was looking at him without a hint of his cheerful demeanour from earlier, poised in the Uchiha inceptor style with some differences.

The genin caught his eyes and the subtly shifted them to his forearm, where Itachi could make out the edges of a scroll. Their sight met again and Sasuke blinked slowly.

Itachi was officially stumped, but he blinked back slowly too.

Whatever the matter was, his brother had clearly not thought things through but wanted to deliver him a message of some kind.

 _No._ Itachi could not accept whatever it was. He was a nuke-nin, one of the greatest traitor to Konoha, one who had turned on his clan and then the village in its history, if not the greatest.

It was stupid, nonsensical, and he had no reason to.

And yet the small, relieved smile Sasuke shot him when the foolish little brother understood that his elder brother had received the message tugged at his heartstrings. Perhaps he truly was a 'foolish older brother' as well.

Besides, he had his curiosity.

Itachi moved forwards and engaged Kakashi, swiftly making a water clone and then switching himself with it, steeled his heart and directly punched Sasuke's solar plexus (without holding back), elbowing the back of his neck before grabbing his arm.

In one swift movement he removed the scroll from beneath his blue sleeves into those of his own cloak, and to remove any suspicion as to why Itachi had locked his arm, the elder Uchiha broke it.

And Sasuke, he knew, he just somehow knew, attacked him to show as if he had sacrificed his arm in order to get a shot at him, his other hand bursting with lightning as he swiped at him.

Itachi leaped backwards, a diagonal slash marring his high collar and Sasuke body-flickered out of vicinity. It took a moment to sink in that he hadn't meant to let that happen.

 _You've grown, Sasuke._

"Let's cease this. I did not come here to kill you." Itachi told Kakashi.

"Then why did you come here?" Kakashi asked, panting furiously. The man had mastered his Sharingan quite well for someone not an Uchiha, Itachi would give him that.

"We only came to find what we were searching for."

"What are you searching for?" Kakashi readied his kunai, but it was useless. Itachi felt no need to tell him, Jiraya-sama had or would soon catch on their little group after they encountered Uzumaki Naruto.

Instead he activated his Mangekyou Sharingan and Kurenai hurriedly warn Kakashi, throwing down a smoke-bomb to hamper everyone's visibility, forcing Itachi to drop his original plans. And moments later another one of Konoha's elite jounin showed up, hitting Kisame with enough force to lift the giant of a man off his feet.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!" Maito Gai yelled, kicking the Kiri-nin in the face.

"Who the fuck are you?!" Kisame righted himself and wiped his mouth, blood trickling down his chin.

"Let's go, Kisame. He's a skilled jounin." It was time to retreat. And no one was able to stop them. Kakashi had overextended himself, and Itachi hadn't used his Mangekyou Sharingan at all.

They ran non-stop for until the sun went down and took refuge in a forest, in one of the places Itachi knew had lax patrols. When Kisame went off to hunt on his turn, Itachi took out the scroll Sasuke had given him.

It was a plain, blue storage scroll. Flipping it open he unsealed it, and blinked at the contents. What a day for surprises.

Besides box of dango from his favourite shop in Konoha and quite possibly the elemental nations, was a small note in pencil with just kanji and a little drawing. Any and all joy Itachi might have felt within vanished when he read it.

"…" With a pinch of fire chakra he burnt the note.

' _Refuse, Kill, Understand, Love, Forgive'_ was written vertically over the trunk of a tree with plenty of roots covering the lower half on the page. On the tree were branches, dividing into none or two, three and four further ones. And the one splitting into two was slightly darkened and leading all the way down to the roots.

The Foundation. ROOT. Created by the Second Hokage.

Sasuke knew.

Itachi felt his plans shatter and then fall into a thousand pieces.

Sasuke knew. Sasuke wouldn't kill him.

A tear slid down his stoic face, and not the blood he was used to. All this time he had lived to be hunted down by the brother he had left behind, the one who would be the one to kill him, avenge the clan and be hailed a hero, restoring its reputation.

That very same brother who refused to kill him. Who had refused to acknowledge what he had witnessed and been told about him, the one whose life he had turned into a living nightmare. He had endured all that, looked underneath the underneath, and had not fallen to hatred.

A ghost of a smile passed across his lips. How ironic was it that he chose Sasuke over the clan _and_ the village, and yet expected his brother to not choose him above all else?

His partner's chakra began to approach quickly, and Itachi wiped away his stray tear and recomposed himself in a flash.

But there was one thing he did not have to feel conflicted about today. The dango Sasuke got him could not be shared with Kisame, and Itachi had no qualms about eating a whole box all by himself.


	16. Chapter 16

Thanks for all the reviews! I do read them. And yes I shall walk the Planck and study my grammar too. (puns) First time I've written such a lengthy fic, I hope I can brush up on it some time later and make it better. Also, are there any good Jiraya-centric fics or NarutoXKurotsuchi ones? Please recommend, and as always, thank you for taking the time to read this story! ^^

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 **Chapter 16: All Medicines Are Poisons**

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 _" 'Classic' - a book people praise, but don't read." -_ Mark Twain

* * *

"It was fortunately a very clean break, but no physical training for two days. Come back for those two days so we can fix you up with chakra. Now off you go!" The medic, Nami-san shooed me off. She was young and pretty, albeit with stress lines already on her face. And apparently Amuro-sensei from the pre-natal ward had a crush on her. It said something about me that I knew the gossip around Konoha's largest hospital, but that something I knew not.

As it was, I simply sighed. Now that my medical check-up was finished, it was time to face the music. Kakashi-sensei was waiting for me outside, book in hand for the first time in weeks. It snapped shut as his eye bore into mine. I briefly wondered why wasn't he off reporting to the elder council regarding Itachi, Sandaime's colleagues running the village alongside him.

Kakashi-sensei shunshin'd away, and tracking his chakra I followed. Surprisingly he led me into a restaurant. An establishment where the hostess seemed familiar with him and led us to a room without prompting.

It wasn't fancy in appearance, but spotlessly clean. I followed my teacher past the occupied tables and servers efficiently serving food, not a single person without a meal. All said people were shinobi. We took a staircase to the upper floor of the building lined with private booths behind sliding doors.

I noticed that it was pin-drop silent. Kakashi-sensei opened one door and I followed inside, waiting for the jounin to sit on one of the floor cushions and then seat myself. Experience had taught me that he was not averse to making me stand the whole time and deflect all attempts to ask whether I could sit down.

"You may have noticed, but this little place is perfect for privacy." Kakashi-sensei tapped the corner of the table with a finger, sending a small pulse of chakra to it. The result was a seal lighting up, blue lines running from the tatami floor, over the walls and across the roof in a honeycomb pattern, before fading in a second. "So tell me Sasuke, what should I do with you?"

"Ah, can I know just what you're going to tear me a new one for?" I asked to be sure, a bit cheekily. Kakashi just stared back, a slight tightening around his eye.

"Using a lightning jutsu while standing on a river? Engaging an S-Rank nuke-nin?"

I felt heat creep up my face at that. It was stupid to try to use Chidori against Itachi while on a river. Actually, it was stupid to use Chidori against Itachi at all. "There were three jounin present. And how was I supposed to know _Itachi_ of all people would show up on my way to the Hokage Tower?"

"You called a missing-nin, who slaughtered your clan, niisan." Kakashi said, his voice holding a slight edge. I flinched, and hated my reaction. "Do you have _any_ good reason for that?"

"Um, psychological tactics? ..."

Kakashi hung his head. "How did you _not_ get killed?"

Ouch. Trust me though, I ask myself that every day. Talking meant thinking, and thinking meant wasting time in a fight. Somehow I never considered the possibility that teleporting between jounin and S-rank shinobi would get me skewered if Itachi was not a sensor.

There were footsteps outside our door before the same hostess as before entered with expensive beef and vegetables, alongside a platter of spices. But I did not allow myself even a momentary distraction to salivate over the possible meal in Kakashi-sensei's presence. I watched the scene play out as Kakashi-sensei lit the grill between us and began to marinate the meat. He seemed to be making Shashlik on a stove originally meant for Yakiniku, but I refused to question it I did.

"Where would you rank, considering your abilities?" Kakashi-sensei asked, his attention seemingly not on me.

"Well, a solid C-rank." I replied confidently, and then could have sworn that the jounin across me had snorted.

"You can probably copy medical techniques with your Sharingan with your level of control."

"Really?" That seemed farfetched. "Well, I should try that next time." Only one way to find out; experimentation.

"You can perform a jutsu without hand-seals. _In combat._ " Here his eyes bore into mine, sending a shiver down my spine. "Do you know, disregarding medic-nin, how many people in Konoha can forgo all the seals needed for a jutsu?"

"Plenty of jounin? Five, six?" I hazarded. _Where is he going with this?_ I wanted to ask, but asking Kakashi-sensei directly never worked out. Better play along. Considering Rasengan and Chidori were performed by two people on my team without hand-seals (not that the former required any), they were both A-ranked techniques, not something a chunin would perform without seals.

"Only one below the rank of jounin, of which there are also few."

 _What._

Kakashi-sensei casually cut an eggplant and placed the slices on the grill to roast, ignoring my no doubt dumbfound expression.

"Considering that you can blow fire element techniques as well without making a single sign if needed, I'd say you're ahead of me." He eye-smiled as my brain went into overdrive. Where was he going with this flattery, and more importantly, did I have enough kunai to deal with it?

"If sensei has already given you the carrot, when is the stick coming?" Kakashi carried on wryly, making skewers with meat, eggplant, green and red peppers in between the pieces. "Your problem is, while you may outclass jounin in some areas, you suck more than a genin in many!" he grinned beneath his mask.

Me? Outclass jounin? Is. He. High?

"Sure." I deadpanned. "That's great. Never mind that a seal or two still makes a noticeable difference in the execution of the jutsu."

"As your fight with Neji shows, just one surprise can turn the tide. Reminds of a time when quite a strong ninja got a shock from having snow shoved down his collar, enough to get him kill-"

" _Sensei,_ " I groaned. "What do you _want_?" Frustration laced my voice, but I simply felt tired all of a sudden. Kakashi-sensei's lackadaisical attitude remained.

"Let's see, you broke through Orochimaru's barrier the ANBU were unable to overcome. Something about it absorbing chakra, but all barriers have a threshold that can be overpowered if someone is foolish enough. The four guards powering it were meant to channel and siphon the chakra from outside techniques to further support the barrier, but somehow your chakra managed to disrupt their technique. Something about too much pure lightning to handle."

"Wait, they were absorbing chakra?" I had to use a soldier pill to carry my efforts, so could it be that the exhaustion wasn't simply caused by the technique? Then again, I had no way to know considering I was banned from practicing until further notice, random cracked lines still forming a web of scars on the palm of my right hand.

"They were," Sensei turned the skewers, a mouth-watering smell wafting from the meat. "and you've succeeded in evolving my original technique, one of Konoha's most offensive jutsu. You also have the benefit of knowing Konoha's most defensive technique, the Kaiten. And you copied off the Shadow Clone technique as well. You're competent in taijutsu and shurikenjutsu, but above all _creative_. That can't be taught, and along with the genjutsu you know-"

"What is your _point_?" I gritted my teeth, hands clenching into fists in my lap. "What is the use in knowing all that stuff when I can only keep my shit together during practice? I'm even getting sick of training. But I have to do it, I have to tire myself to the bone otherwise-" _I can't sleep without nightmares_. I wanted to say, but bit my tongue for I could only imagine myself shouting it at him, at the man responsible to the village for making sure I was shinobi and a weapon for its purposes. Hands shaking in frustration and a little fear, I untied the band around my forehead.

I did polish it regularly like all the kunai and shuriken. It was _my_ forehead protector now, stuck in a situation that was not of my own choosing. Was there any sorcery or religion I could turn to, to get out of this situation?

"You can't quit." Kakashi stated bluntly, yet his voice was softer than ever. "I was a jounin when with a skillset less diverse than yours. But that was war-time, and we could afford training shinobi with a focus on their chakra control to put them on par with the chunin and jounin of more populous villages we were fighting with. That way they could have at least taken someone out with them, while the ones that survived lived to be called prodigies."

I frowned at this new knowledge, despite being crestfallen. Of course I couldn't just retire. Everyone was a stupid git in this system. Every. Single. Person. Except maybe Naruto. Wonder what he was doing right now.

I sighed slowly, still not putting the Konoha symbol around my forehead.

"Was that how it worked, with kids younger than us but somehow stronger?" This was news to me, considering all the history and other books I had read during my time in this world. But as a war-time training tactic, it would be way above my grade.

Considering that factor though, it made sense that Tsunade would propose that more medic shinobi be trained if they had the chakra control. The greater control acquired was a compromise against the chakra reserves of said shinobi in their future (but something of a norm in medic-nin), in order to send them out and be effective on the battlefield as fast as feasible, which was directly contrary to training them in medicine because medic-nin took time to train, time no warring nation could afford.

"Were it not for the reforms carried out by the Sandaime, I'm certain you'd be hailed as another 'genius among genii', and look how _well_ we turn out." His tone was rife with self-depreciating humor. "And that is why the training path of your generation is the best to be developed yet."

"This generation is also loaded with clan heirs." I replied wryly. "That could also be a reason."

"You don't say. Also, food's done!" Kakashi-sensei used an empty skewer to slide off the heavenly smelling meat off the others onto a white plate. I held my peace though, for I had yet to be offered any. I subtly checked for any genjutsu, but the food was still there.

"No strings, have some."

"No strings, so a net instead?" I gave him a mild glare.

"Hmm, you've learned." A smile indicated only by a crinkled eye. "But good food can serve as a motivation for more than just the Akimichi."

"And you need the morale of the Last Uchiha up?" I smirked to show I was joking, still not reaching for the tempting, _very_ tempting plate of barbeque in front of me even as pieces vanished off Kakashi-sensei's own plate.

"Maa, the last loyal Uchiha. There's only two of you left anyway."

"Two..." I cocked my head to the side, trying to search Sasuke's and my own memories of that night long ago. Kakashi-sensei went on eating, the Icha Icha somehow in his hands as he chewed and giggled underneath his mask.

 _...Your best friend. You must kill him! If you do, so shall you become the third person alive to possess the Mangekyou Sharingan..._

"No, there is one more." I wondered aloud. "The _third_ person...he said third person alive to possess the Mangekyou Sharingan."

"Mangekyou?" Kakashi-sensei's whole demeanor flipped in an instant. "What do you mean?"

"The loss of one's best friend, or someone very close triggers the Sharingan to evolve into the Mangekyou Sharingan. Niisan said that if I killed my best friend, I would become the third person alive to achieve such a feat."

"Are those really his words?" There was a tightness around his eye I had only seen when the invasion took place, back in the stadium.

"Hey, that night is kinda hard to forget once I remember it." I shook my head, pushing back the scenes of that Tsukuyomi which always began to flash in and out whenever I tried to access memories too far into the past.

"The idea is certainly outlandish. What could possibly-" There was short, slight intake of breath which could be considered a gasp on the jounin's part. "I see."

"See what?" I inquired, wondering what dots he had connected in his head. I finally reached for a bit of the roasted beef but it disappeared in a puff of smoke the moment my fingers touched it. _Goddamn it._

"Nothing for you to worry about...nothing you should be able to consider worrying about, at least." Kakashi-sensei amended, food all gone. "So, will you put that back on, my cute little genin?"

I looked at the symbol of engraved on the metal plate, before nodding and tying the band to my head again. There was something I had gleaned from the conversation, and now was the time to investigate on my own.

Kakashi-sensei had all but hinted I could achieve feats like his by prioritizing the use of chakra over everything else. Time to put the theory to test.

"Sensei, did you have people close to you?" I didn't meet his eyes, and failed to observe any other reaction my words had on him.

"I used to. They were all killed though." The same cheery tone, meant to be reassuring but somehow hurtful all the same.

"Then," I swallowed, wondering if I was right to suggest this. "then you should try and see if you can activate the Mangekyou Sharingan as well. You're not an Uchiha, but you're a genius. And as they say, genius is in the blood of the Uchiha. Or used to say."

"I didn't take you to be the one for puns." He ruffled my hair, and I wasn't annoyed in the slightest. "And Sasuke?"

"Hmm?" I replied with a cheeky smile he did not bother looking at while we stood up.

"Try not to get caught in the restricted section of the library again."

My jaw dropped. Before I could ask how he knew, he disappeared like he always did; in a swirl of leaves leaving behind a confused idiot.

Well, _don't get caught_ , not _don't go there again_. The Sharingan was wonderful for recording the text in an instant, meaning I only lingered in that section for just a few minutes at a time and nothing was removed at all. But I was still caught.

More stealth would be required to get my hands on what I really wanted now...the techniques taught to genin during war. I couldn't very well go to Orochimaru, but I still needed power.

...was it my imagination, or did my cursed seal just react to my thoughts? Note to self: be careful of the horcrux that had been silent up till now.

* * *

"Ouch," Naruto muttered, sprawled on the ground. The day had turned out to be quite something. Running into another weirdo with a Sharingan, getting the hell out of dodge while the Goddamned perverted hermit got his shit together and reached him in just the nick of time, to meeting the most irritating woman that some idiot thought should be Hokage, and now trying to learn this very neat, but difficult beyond belief jutsu in the timeframe of one week.

Yep, things were definitely not boring. The village also weighed on his mind, how the Gaara going out of control in the middle of the stadium had somehow renewed the fear in some of the people that pretended he didn't exist; refused to acknowledge him out of fear.

On the plus side, rebuilding had kept many too busy to stir trouble for him. Neji had had his views changed with some very persuasive proof. The Hyuga had been terrified of going against a rampaging Tailed Beast, but Naruto had sure shown him. Well, Naruto and Gamabunta, but he was the one who summoned the Toad Boss in the first place! Team effort.

 _Hehe. Uzumaki Naruto, 1; Fate, 0. And now, to master the second step!_

Naruto jumped back up, picking up another rubber ball from the bag on the ground next to him. His right hand flared at the physical movement, and he channeled the painful scream that escaped his lips into a determined yell as he shoved chakra inside the rubber ball and spun in _and spun it and-_

It deflated from a hole popping along its side rather than bursting like Jiraya's demonstration. The sudden pressure removed, Naruto saw double for a moment and the next he was on the ground again, staring up at the stars with his hand singing in pain.

"Wonder what Sasuke and Sakura-chan are up to..." The blond pondered, especially about his rival. He was such a weird person.

Throughout the Academy he had treated the future Hokage like dirt, the gall of him, but at least he didn't pretend that Naruto didn't exist. And after they were put on the same team, Naruto was expecting things to be a pain, no matter, he would get through it.

But then, it was like he had never known the person called Uchiha Sasuke at all. He didn't try to impress Kakashi-sensei, and Naruto often wondered why hadn't Sensei simply attacked them to keep up the ruse of the test to separate them. But Kakashi-sensei was good at reading people too, if bad at talking to them.

Sensei had known at once it was Sasuke who would be trouble to the team's working, but since Sakura followed him, and Sasuke was the one spearheading the cause for teamwork, they would pass nonetheless. It would have been a shame to fail them anyway, since Sasuke had Konoha's most coveted bloodline and Naruto was...well, he'd be stupid to think if even the Old Man would let his potential go to waste. Other villages also had Jinchuuriki, and as there was a "balance of power" or something to be maintained. Which was well, since it was what Naruto _wanted._

But as future Hokage, he had to ponder what would be the case if it someone else in his shoes, someone who didn't want to fight.

 _Someone like Sasuke._

"Man, those Team Seven discussions were really helpful." Naruto mused aloud. Not only did his teammates help him with his Kanji, but Sasuke's continued interest in history meant they had very interesting discussions sometimes on days off, with cool analogies and Sakura-chan's amazing reading speed meant they could find answers to questions they'd stumble onto quickly.

Naruto could say with confidence that he knew information about topics that weren't related to the Hokage now. Like the clans of Konoha, the other villages, their beef with his village. Once he was Hokage, he was going to sort this stuff out, especially what the Hyuga clan had to go through.

Which brought his thoughts to Hinata, heat creeping up his face.

"GAH! NO! STOP THINKING ABOUT HER, STOP THINKING ABOUT HER!" Naruto flailed on the ground. "DAMN YOU SASUKEEE!"

Ah, Sasuke. The bastard had thrown his chunin exams as well, even after he clocked Neji up and down the stadium. It was downright sneaky, learning the Shadow Clone jutsu and the Transformation to trick the Hyuga. Not to mention the speed with which the clone had moved, like he was Rock Lee.

Back then he had been too angry to consider why Sasuke didn't want to fight, but looking at Tanzaku Gai, for the first time outside his ninja village, Naruto had observed that there were people who went their whole lives without fighting, still had big dreams like his was to be Hokage, still left their mark on history in small ways. The uncle whose family had been running a fish restaurant for generations, many different families rather than the Akimichi dominated market in Konoha, various chemists and pharmacists who proudly displayed diplomas on their shop, stating approval from the Nara clan, children that went to school in order to have an occupation different from their parents.

There was so much Sasuke could do if he quit being a ninja, even if the thought didn't sit well with Naruto. Why did Sasuke insist upon doing something he disliked, if not hated? The blond had often seen the Uchiha hanging by himself, alone, staring at his pale hands with a hollow face.

Discomfort radiated off him when people who'd seen him at the chunin exams expected him to be promoted, suspecting some wisdom or strategy behind giving up after winning, not knowing that he truly had given up, not just this match, but something else as well. His teammate coped with helping out people normally, like Naruto wished he could if he wasn't so...well, disliked was a mild way to put it. As such, he was forced to stay away from Sasuke, hoping he'd come around some time are this break he was on.

He'd heard rumors after the exams, that Sasuke had killed several enemies. That Kakashi's _best student_ would fit right into ANBU with how _efficiently_ he had _dispatched_ human beings.

Naruto tried to picture his teammate, who hid his feelings even though he knew the bastard actually enjoyed hanging around with them, who could be roped into their shenanigans with an apple from that one specific stall, who gave backhanded compliments he might have taken as insults had those black eyes not sparkled with _faint_ humor he'd never known existed beneath the mask.

Recently, those eyes only looked haunted.

 _Since when did you start being so sad, bastard?_ Naruto asked the stars glittering above him, an uncharacteristic frown on his face.

* * *

My cast came off soon enough, and I realized that no one had actually placed me off the duty roster during the two days I was supposed to let it rest. Why the hell is there so much paperwork?! No one had bothered to change Naruto's status either while he wasn't even in the village. The chunin at the mission desk found that out when me and Sakura went to get a mission. Kakashi-sensei was nowhere to be seen, probably doing A-Rank or S-Rank stuff since he wasn't in the Hokage Office above.

So, I knew that breath moved chakra. I knew that using some tenketsu rather than all when exuding chakra further cut down the costs of tree and water walking, or sticking to stuff in general. I had learned that imbuing chakra into standard kunai and shuriken was not as effortless for others as it was for me, having asked Sakura.

" _Honestly Sasuke-kun, are you fishing for compliments? Chakra control is my strongest point, but I doubt I can throw a kunai as fast or as far as you."_

Or so she had said. After double timing a delivery mission to a rather disorganized post a few hours from the village today, I returned to find Tenten, finally available amidst the increased workload. This cut into our time to train, but luckily, Sakura knew how to make nice with people unlike me, and could keep tabs on the gossip in case anything too negative come out against Naruto.

My opponent from the chunin exam preliminaries happened to have some kunai with chakra conducting metal. I had felt the chakra thrum in it the moment I readied it. Compared to an ordinary kunai thrown via swinging my arm, this one achieved the same result by flicking my wrist.

Tenten had muttered something like "Geniuses, geniuses _everywhere_."

So _perhaps_ the chakra control I had was not ordinary. I tried not to think about it too hard.

To take it even a step further, I found that the Sharingan could copy rudimentary medical ninjutsu to seal cuts and close wounds. Nothing tricky like bones though, that required knowledge as well as control.

I had completely stopped all exercises meant to expand my chakra, and hence it's interference with my control. There was a level I needed to be at, and push beyond where I currently stood...though I had no idea where. I always held back with my teammates, and Kakashi was a jounin, but also internationally strong. That is, a shite measuring stick. But enough to know I was miles below Itachi.

I was in a proper training ground again for the first time since the invasion, performing a technique meant to further strengthen chakra control.

The lowering Sun cast its reflection as I stepped into the lukewarm water, taking off my shirt but leaving the sleeveless top on, alongside the mesh.

Neck deep in the lake of Training Ground 7, I tried to form a hold on the layer of water several feet underneath the surface and above the bottom of the lake, continuously shifting in all three planes as opposed to just two. And tried to perform the taijutsu forms I knew.

Just five unsuccessful minutes were enough to give me a headache. I considered removing my weights but waded to a knee deep area instead.

For the next hour I had minimal success, and then put on a pair of newly bought goggles to go through a full set of my forms completely underwater.

The limited oxygen made it a strenuous task, and due to my weightlessness in water, I was forced to use mostly chakra to move my limbs.

Before surfacing after finishing a third set, a chakra signature pinged in my senses, directly behind me, probably on land. It seems to flow smoothly, like Kakashi-sensei's. So an ANBU, or a jounin. Palming a kunai, I surfaced with a blast of water parried the senbon sent my way, landing on the lake with my Sharingan active.

"Oh, now _this_ is interesting." Mitarashi Anko said, one hand in the pocket of her coat.

 _Oh, great. Just great._

"Why are you here?" I tried to cover my apprehension with annoyance in my tone.

"Aw, no Hi or Hello?" The special jounin grinned, looking quite friendly, almost Naruto-ish. But I wasn't fooled. This woman was not to be trifled with, and best avoided if one wished to live a long life. "And here I thought I could make you my friend, kiddo."

"Somehow, I don't think that's a good thing."

"Aww, that hurts my heart." She pouted, shifting the angle of her face just so to give me puppy-eyes. "Does that mean we can't be friends?"

"Mitarashi-san," I said, chakra thrumming for combat even though hers felt still. "can I-" In an instant she was on me, senbon blazing through the air as she launched at me.

 _WHAT IS IT WITH THIS KILL FIRST, ASK LATER ATTITUDE?!_

I leapt forward, letting the senbon pass me by just shifting minimally. The woman shifted, breaking past my guard in an instant and hitting my sternum with a heel palm strike very reminiscent of Orochimaru.

But I had fought the Sannin before, and it was her turn to be surprised as I twisted my back, aiming a kick towards chest, which connected. She grabbed my ankle and I dropped to the water with a small yelp at the force, chakra from my hand keeping me from going under, simultaneously using it to channel lightning.

The special jounin dropped my leg at once, shaking off her hand. "My, aren't you just full of surprises?" She purred, narrowing her eyes mischievously as she spun a kunai around her finger.

I body-flickered to the land but she followed, keeping me on the lake. What were the odds of her being here? Did Kakashi send her to screw with me? Why could she possibly- Oh. The Cursed Seal of Heaven.

Reflexively I touched the affected area on my neck, and made out a slight shift in her features. What was she thinking? Well. No matter. I could use a spar, and considering I managed to actually land a hit on her, she did know how to go easy.

I activated the Sharingan effortlessly, subtly checking for genjutsu, before switching it off. Finding myself clear, I readied my stance to ask her for a fight, finding the action useless. She was behind me in an instant, and it was _on._

I leapt sideways with a volley of drenched shuriken, taking into account their wetness. The accuracy was spot on but Anko moved aside, coming at me with a low kick. Unable to dodge I responded with a kick of my own, shin flaring in pain. But I gave it no thought.

 _Pain is a warning. I've been warned._

No doubt there would be a bruise there, but I leaned back and slashed upwards, breaking my opponent's attempt to grapple my shoulders. She dodged by a hair's breadth and spat senbon which I caught, Sharingan now active for combat.

Anko wouldn't be able to tell of course, for contact lenses made for shinobi had an added benefit of being usable in aquatic environments. I had them on all the time.

Then I leapt forward again, throwing two kunai, both of which she batted aside with a single, fluid movement and stood there, her grin still present. At least neither of her hands was pocketed. The scary part was, she looked _friendly._ Was she different from the anime? No. Not at all. A true assassin appeared as a meek little clerk before they shoved a kunai into your chest to the ring.

I channeled chakra into my limbs, and burst off again, dodging her blows but unable to land a single clean hit on her, always getting blocked or redirected. And then she went on the offensive, driving an elbow to where my clavicle met my shoulder and kicking my knee to bend in the opposite direction.

That got a scream out.

And then the water clone burst, and the original me who had substituted with it at the last moment smashed an uppercut with the opening of the Primary Lotus, swiftly kicking her to the side with the same leg. My left knee was hurting something bad.

Even as she fell she flew through hand seals and with a pivot meant to reorient her erected an earth wall, and threw a kunai with a primed explosive tag. My own thrown kunai, meant to go behind her and let me substitute with it embedded into the structure instead.

And _of course_ her tag would blow sooner than the three second limit I was used to. Custom-made. And then of course, I realized my error, even having leapt back to distance myself safely from the would-be explosion.

It wasn't a tag. It was a flash-bang.

My sight was not going to adjust for _minutes_ , meaning that I had rely on my chakra-sensing and sound. That was a lifetime for a shinobi battle.

The good news was that I had practiced fighting blind-folded. The bad news was my ears weren't ringing at that time, and therefore, I truly was a sitting duck. A fact which was made known when a knee pummeled into solar plexus and palm strike cracked my collar bone.

I followed my instinct and successfully stopped my nose from being broken by batting away the _almost_ soundless strike and spat a Fireball pointblank. Then I forced my eyes open, my bloodline limit deactivated to see the blurry remains of a charred log, violet and bright yellow spots dancing in my vision in circles, hexagons and white lines.

There were three slow claps from the woman standing outside the lake. "Not bad kiddo, not bad. As your reward, let's go get some dango!"

I sighed, refusing to lower my guard as I kneeled and splashed some water on my face.

 _Not bad, she says._ That one surprise was enough to kill me. I had to be better. Be faster. Smarter. And I was going to pay any attention to the curse mark throbbing like it knew the solution to those quandaries.

"I'm going to be one paying aren't I?" I said, gathering my weapons from the ground. Ones that fell into the lake could be obtained some other time, if they remained.

"Well, since you're offering so graciously, why not!" She let out a girlish giggle. I still refused to let my guard down around her. It was becoming increasingly difficult to do so.

"I most certainly did not, Mitarashi-san." I finally wore my shirt again, wincing at the number she did to my body.

"Is that any way to address your new friend Sasuke-kun?" She pouted. I could sense a trap in there.

"Anko-san?" I followed as she began to walk away. I did not want to see the consequences of refusing to buy her dango, even though she had ruined my schedule for the day. Little sleep tonight, I guess.

"Wrong again! Only one more try, before you also make friends with my kunai. Intimately." She added, her eyes reflecting something dark, the twist of her lips sinister before it vanished. Like a small cloud passing overhead.

She possibly could not want me to refer to her informally so... "Anko-sama?"

"Bingo!" She threw an arm around me, but I dodged. I had no doubt she'd jostle every injury she had landed. And Anko was, in fact, attractive. Distance needed to be kept, or she'd use it against me.

The special jounin grinned instead, as if reading mind. "Oh, I'm beginning to like you already."

"Hn." I wasn't sure if that was a good thing.


	17. Chapter 17

Warning: Anko not the sexually deviant harassing character shown in fanon. Closer to canon, so that may appear a bit OOC. And thanks to all the reviewers! I couldn't reply due to being in a village, not hidden anywhere...onto the chapter!

Oh and some painful stuff might be there next.

* * *

 **¬.¬**

 **Chapter 17: It's Not My Fault I'm Popular!**

 **¬.¬**

* * *

" _Although this mirror can show a reflection, it cannot show you the truth._ " ~Haibara Ai.

* * *

Mitarashi Anko could tell that to antagonize would not work on Uchiha Sasuke. He seemed ready for it, expecting it even. A preconceived notion in regards to her based only on knowing her from the chunin exams.

Genin were not so guarded against her, especially male genin when she played nice.

Except Uchiha Sasuke, trying to nonchalantly hide how much he wanted to get away from her. Like he had something to hide. Anko's instincts were going off in that regard, the more she observed him.

But Kakashi had not asked her to investigate Sasuke, but use her as psychology knowledge to help his 'cute little duckling' back in the game.

Not that he wasn't already in it. The genin was doing chakra control exercises that would give medic-nin second thoughts, trying to hold his whole body weight upright in a body of water. It was inventive. And something medic-nin could get behind once they stopped daring each other to hand from tree branches by using only one finger in their spare time.

"So, what do you do for fun?" She walked with practiced nonchalance, hands in the pockets of her coat.

"I train. And study. What about you?" The boy turned to her and she made eye-contact. He instantly looked elsewhere.

"I like tea ceremonies." Anko shrugged. "Want to try it some time?"

"Are you sure you're not supposed to be busy?"

"Where do you think I work?" Anko asked outright. The kid was upright, and did not have any known anger triggers and liked to help others. Which meant that unless she offended his sense of 'justice', he wouldn't lose his temper. Honesty worked better with these types once you got them in a conversation.

"How would I know? You're a jounin without a team." The Uchiha shot back.

A plausible evasion. "Not answering my question kiddo. Take a guess."

"Maa, if you insist," Cheeky, wasn't he? "ANBU, or Academy teacher."

Oh. To everyone else, she was too loud and brash and to be in ANBU. No one made that conclusion from just one meeting with her. She was a part-time interrogator at Intelligence, often accompanied by ANBU on missions. After her...that bastard's betrayal, the highest rank she could get was Special Jounin, and was posted as an Academy teacher to keep her in plain view and in the village.

Except the Sandaime – the _departed_ Sandaime, had come through for her, rationalizing his decision to give her a mask for on-and-off missions that had no business being recorded at all in scrolls. Essentially, an agent with plausible deniability. All the missions she went on at the old man's word, she technically had no clearance for. But at least she didn't feel useless.

Now, how did he deduce that?

"The second one is correct! So, what made you think so?"

"I don't see you around the village much, and if you have enough spare time to randomly hang out with a genin, you can only be an academy teacher."

"How much do you even hang around the village? and the ANBU part?" She tilted her head.

"I don't see you around the village much," He parroted. And then secretly took a longer breath. "And your chakra is like theirs."

"I didn't know you were a sensor." Anko wondered out loud. She'd done her homework, consulting the academy records before coming to meet Kakashi's brat.

"Not a natural one."

Interesting, to say the least. _Kakashi, what have you been doing with this kid?_

They had reached her favorite dango stand. This time, she went inside rather than taking a bench set outside the shop. The building had private rooms with adequate seals, and Anko told the girl behind the counter to send her usual order.

"What will you have?" Anko turned to ask the genin. Clan child, didn't even bother to mention he had injuries that had to be taken care of. Or was it Kakashi's influence? He was shifting uneasily, favoring his right leg.

"Just green tea. With lemons." The girl behind the counter smiled a tad too brightly at the pretty boy, causing Anko to snap her fingers. The pretty-boy just smiled back awkwardly, before excusing himself to use the restroom without asking any of the employees where it was. A minute later he walked out, more steady and face clean.

"You've been here before?" Anko asked the genin then, leading him a room meant for couples on purpose in the back of the shop. Some of those rooms opened out to a view of a small garden, with an artificial pond surrounded by smooth round stones.

"By myself, but not till here." He was warily eyeing how small the room was, a table with just two seating cushions and a vase resting on the window-still. For a moment it looked like he was trying to read what message the white flowers held.

Gardenias. The boy gave up trying to figure out their meaning and Anko openly snickered.

"What?" He huffed, sitting down as far as he could, his back touching the wall. Anko plopped down herself, leaning back with her forearm resting on her knee.

"Those are gardenias. They symbolize a crush, even secret love." She grinned wide, but the Uchiha merely rolled his eyes. "Interesting as that is though, I just think the owner just likes how they look."

"I see." The kid relaxed a bit. "Had me worried there for a second. I'm half your age, probably."

"What was that?" A kunai had suddenly found its way into her hands.

"Nothing!" He raised his hand in placation, but she could feel the way his chakra actually flared. Kid was ready to bolt at the sign of a joke. She sighed, that was almost civilian-like.

"Sasuke – is it okay if I call you Sasuke? Of course it is- what do you think is your greatest weakness as a ninja?"

"Why would a ninja tell someone else their greatest weakness?" He eyed her neutrally. But Anko had been in the game much longer than him, the way his sleeve was wrinkling a bit at the elbow gave away how he fidgeted.

"Well," She cupped her chin thoughtfully. "You're good enough to land a hit on me, even going as far as to push me a little. But do you know what I noticed?"

"Wait, you didn't let me land a hit on you?" Sasuke looked at her, eyes wide.

Anko scowled. "Why the fuck would I? I don't go easy on anyone."

"Oh. Sorry. I was just...surprised, that I overestimated you." He smirked.

Wow. Confidence issues with the one the cockier students recorded in the academy. Was it due meeting up with his brother again? But then, Kakashi had told her about that reckless encounter. The boy didn't freeze, didn't hesitate the way one would in front of a person that caused them great trauma.

"Anyway, like I was saying, you don't have any killing intent at all. I'm not saying you couldn't have killed me with that Fireball jutsu back there, but it would not have been intentional." Perhaps a factor in why his curse seal didn't act up much at all.

"Aren't you a jounin?" Sasuke looked like he would really like to bang his head against a wall.

"I know! Imagine how the people you killed-" a visible flinch, "would feel if they realized you killed them by _accident_."

"The invasion was different." He was spoke fast, slightly panicked. "They were killing other people! I had to stop them! It wasn't an accident." The last sentence was spoken bitterly, full of loathing.

"And you did the right thing." Anko said, gently almost. "It's a fucked up world with fucked up people, and we do what we gotta do. The Suna and Sound nin which came and killed Konoha's people, I hate what they did, but I understand why they did it." After all, that snake was a _very_ convincing bastard. "You didn't want to kill them, they didn't want to get killed, but it just happened."

"I... but if we can understand, why can't we..." He trailed off, his eyes were elsewhere.

Belatedly Anko realized something. "Were these your first kills?"

Sasuke snapped back to reality, his face smoothing over. "Yes." His tone was neutral, hiding everything and anything. "I talked to Kakashi-sensei about it. You don't have to worry."

Anko's eye twitched. Whenever the kid tried to lie to her, he levelled his breathing to give no tells. Which was remarkable, but that forced meditation was a tell in of itself.

"Like hell, kiddo. I know Kakashi. You'd have pretended everything was alright, and he'd have said his piece and then walked away, suppressing everything you feel."

"What do you know about _me_?" He growled. And that was the question, wasn't it? And his first hint of anger. Anko mentally checked his identity on the list of things that made him tick.

"You go through the shit I've been through Sasuke, and you get to know all sorts of things." There was a knock before the rice-paper door slide open, interrupting them. The Uchiha watched as ten trays of dango were placed in front them, along with two cups, his with sliced lemons on the coaster.

The genin thanked the waitress, before eyeing the ridiculous amount of dumplings. "You'll get fat someday. I can see it."

He got a senbon through the lemon he was squeezing into his tea for that, but didn't react. He had considered it worth it. Maybe there was a sense of humor in him after all.

"Anyway, like I was saying, suppressing emotions, bad shit. You'll snap, or end of like your mess of a sensei."

"Our sensei, our problem."

His team. Another check. She cleaned an entire stick of dango in one go, her cheeks puffed as she chewed.

"I'm just saying, I know I'm pulling this friend shit on you 'cause I'm bored but honestly, talk to someone, bawl your eyes, do something cathartic. There's no shame in it, Sasuke."

This gave him pause. Anko could see it, his lowering his walls just a tiny bit. "Do _you_ cry?"

"Of course. I just don't let people see it. I have a reputation to maintain." She scoffed.

"Can I ask you something? I know, I know," He gave her an annoyed look as she was about to answer over a mouthful of dango. "You don't have to answer it. Who was your sensei?"

The woman swallowed, took a sip of her tea slowly. The boy in front of her waited calmly, as she took another long sip.

"Orochimaru." Anko said at last, closing her eyes and trying not to think of her regrets, anguish and any memories of that man. And the genin in front of her, upon finding out that she had been trained by a traitor to the Leaf, one of its greatest enemies and killer of the Sandaime was...not much surprised. "It was long ago... but you knew that, didn't you?

"Just confirming. Your taijutsu seemed familiar."

"Well, color me surprised. You actually fought with the guy?"

"In a way." He sipped his tea lightly, thinking. "Do you know what a Cursed Seal of Heaven is?"

Anko would have choked on a dango had she not had her tea handy to gulp it down. First this guy was shut tighter than twenty years old virgin girl on the first night of her arranged marriage she'd had no say in, and now he was asking about something as classified as that?

But well...he had a right to know about it.

"You mean this?" She pulled her collar sideways, revealing the three commas on the back of her neck, surrounded by the Evil Sealing Method.

"What does it do, besides chakra corruption?" Sasuke rested his chin on his knuckles, and Anko realized it was the only time she had seen his hands when he hadn't reached for his tea. He was quite a careful individual.

"Corruption, you can think of it like that. The tomoe are too dense to make out the actual symbols, but it enhances everything except natural reserves; speed, strength, control, you name it. The more it's used, the more the subject becomes reliant on it." She spoke with clinical detachment, as if reading from a report. "The recovery of chakra pathways isn't complete once the seal deactivates from the system. Once the system is weakened, naturally developed strength begins to fade and the subject is forced to use the seal more and more in an endless cycle to perform at and above the level they used to before they got the seal. Over time it changes their personality, causing them to become more aggressive, more sadistic."

Anko paused to re-fill her tea and took a long sip. The boy watched in mute fascination, rubbing his own neck. "The only way to recover is to completely stop using the seal, since it's designed to make the user reliant on it. The Evil Sealing Method only restricts the activation of the seal, which is triggered by killing intent." She held her thumb and index finger closed. "Even this little will do, talking from experience. So either you've never channeled killing intent, or just have monstrous control over yourself, which you don't."

Uchiha Sasuke raked a hand through his hair. "I see. Thank you. Sorry for making you talk about. You looked uncomfortable."

"Not a problem, Sasuke. We're friends in the same boat, aren't we?" She gave a small smile, pointing with her chin towards his neck. He removed her suspicions and pulled down his collar to reveal his own curse mark, although it seemed a bit lighter than hers...had the bastard made any changes to it?

 _Oh well, I finally established some rapport._ Anko thought. _I'll ask him about it next time._

She tapped a seal underneath the table to call for the bill. Looking at all the empty trays, the special jounin smirked. "Say, Sasuke, want to know a secret?" She asked cheerfully. A tad too cheerfully judging by how guarded the genin became, but he was Kakashi's brat. He could handle this.

"What is it?"

"This shop lets you open a tab to pay for dango. You can pay for it installments." The boy stiffened and she gave a feral grin. The door opened, a blue kimono clad girl with their bill in hand a large tray to gather the utensils.

"A-About that, can't you pay at least half?" Sasuke reasoned nervously, eyeing the amount of empty trays.

"Aw shucks, no can do. Well, it was nice meeting you. See y-"

"Thank you." The boy grinned back, the most expressive she had seen him. Something was off. Her instincts were blaring.

"Thanks for what?"

"For proof that you were actually going to ditch me with the bill." Uchiha Sasuke winked, and then with a puff of smoke, vanished.

Anko's eyes went wide. A shadow clone.

"Motherfu-"

* * *

I sneezed as my clone dispelled, channeling the memories back to me. I muffled my mouth with a hand to not snicker out loud in the library. Across from me, Sakura, studying a scroll on medicine per my suggestion, raised a brow.

"What's up?" She suppressed a yawn. With everything going on, she had kept up her training, sometimes alongside me.

"I left someone with a clone of mine, and he just dispelled. She's going to have to pay the bill on her own now." I whispered back. Shinobi may ignore doctor's orders, be late to meetings, be petty towards clients sometimes, but one thing they didn't do was skip out on paying for meals in the village. No one in their right mind paid, and then ran if they had a forehead protector on them.

"Who was it?" Sakura unfurled the scroll further, her eyes drooping. I reached out and touched her hand.

"Don't read it you're so tired. This stuff takes plenty of brainpower." Even with the Sharingan, memorizing medical texts would induce headaches. The amount of Kanji used, which neither I nor 'Sasuke' had knowledge of left the mind numb.

"Sorry, I tried push-ups while hanging upside-down on the roof today. How do you do hundreds of them?" My teammate sighed, closing the scroll. "So, spill."

"It was our proctor for the second exam, Mitarashi Anko. She interfered in my training, launched an impromptu spar, and then took me to the dango shop for a little heart-to-heart. And then my clone dispelled when the time came to pay for her 25 trays of dango."

Green eyes became boggled at the fact. Sakura hung her head, face shadowed. "That's fifty sticks. One stick has around 120 Kilocalories, 6000 in total. She's definitely gonna get fat."

"Not unless she stops training."

"True." Sakura then shrugged, back to normal. "Say, do your clones eating affect your hunger?"

"No, it stays the same. Their chakra is replenished a bit with the food, so the amount I receive back is a little higher." I had snuck to the hospital after making that clone, and then ran into Sakura on my way to the library to pass some time (read: hide).

On second thought, she was definitely sent by Kakashi to play counsellor. Which meant she would know to look here. I expanded my chakra sensing range as far as I could, and sensed her making her way here.

"I need to get away from here." I said suddenly, picking up my book and neatly aiming it back into it's place. The librarian scowled at the display, ignoring how awesome it was.

"Why Sasuke-kun?" Sakura power-walked to return her scroll while I fidgeted impatiently. Anko was gaining ground fast.

"She's after me. You can stay here." I said as I exited the library.

Sakura deadpanned. "We're teammates. We share the blame."

"No we don't, we pin it on Kakashi-sensei." I shot back and leapt to the roof, too fast for her to follow.

"That's unfair Sasuke-kun!" She called after me, but I began to jump up and down between the buildings, until I reached the bridge and dove into the river underneath. Using chakra, I began to push myself forward and swim upstream.

Anko was a tracker, and I needed to get rid of my scent. Sensing her still far away, but enough to see me should I jump high, I rose to the water and stood still on the current, before launching myself horizontally into a civilian district, spirally while exuding chakra to rid myself of the water.

Much like a dog, but then again the inspiration did strike me from Fang Over Fang.

I walked into a clothing store, one that hadn't been affected by the invasion I noted, and walked out wearing a white shirt, black pants and a pair of black sandals. I had not bought anything, except for a red wristband. It had become a habit to keep spare items on myself after the loss of my apartment.

In the distance I could sense approximately Anko reach the river, and then stay there for a while. I walked slowly, lest she fell out of range and breathed a sigh of relief when she finally retreated.

Now by myself, I let my thoughts drift, navigating my way out of the crowd.

There was a fair amount of techniques I had copied, and I was well-balanced in all areas, chakra control increasing as I focused solely on that. With enough augmentation I could fight Anko, and if I took off my weights, I was sure I could take her.

But I just did not think like a shinobi. I played to my strengths, I didn't directly go and extort people's weaknesses.

With Naruto I dallied with his clones rather than use my speed to knock him down before he made any and gave him plenty of space. With Neji I had not used much ninjutsu, instead keeping close to him rather than staying out of his range, or use Chidori Nagashi enough to incapacitate him. Same with Anko, I could have rammed enough chakra into her when she had my ankle in her hand, but I was focused on getting her to drop it, rather than damaging her. Kakashi-sensei...well he was beyond me. The more I counted my abilities, the more I realized how much my mindset was holding me back.

A mindset and morals I did not want to give up.

There was also the matter of Orochimaru whom I had met on the Konoha General Hospital roof, but was unable to clearly identify. Was it really Orochimaru, or some imposter? How could he survive the full sealing of his soul? Or was it someone trying to keep up the hoax? Kabuto perhaps? He certainly could do it, now that I thought about it.

With a sigh, I began to walk towards the training grounds again. Time to practice stealth, or spy on people and gather data. Reading people without the Sharingan to find their weaknesses ought to help me in fights. I needed to change my approach, to maim at least in order to not kill.

* * *

The corridor was not lit.

Deep in the bowels of Konoha's T&I, Kabuto walked with a calm gait, as if he belonged there. His steps made no sound, but he didn't make to conceal his presence. A crow mask adorned his face, while he was decked in ANBU gear.

There was no need for a Henge, he had cosmetically altered his appearance and hair, now jet black. Down to the body language and left hand dexterity, his disguise was perfect.

The spy turned a corner and then another, never once faltering in the maze-like design which housed prisoners. High profile ones, yet not very much threatening. It took a certain amount of intelligence to get out of here, after all, and not everyone had it, regardless of their knowledge of combat.

Seamless Kabuto slapped his palm to an innocuous brick, different from the others by a shade and released the captured chakra from his arm. A seal spread out on the wall in the semblance of a spider-web, recognizing the chakra of ANBU Crow and logging him in, before a series of light clicks sounded in the hallway ahead of him.

Traps disabled, Kabuto exhaled with a hint of exhaustion. Keeping siphoned chakra in his body was tiresome work, and he hadn't gotten around to storing it in a seal yet. He wasn't a prodigy at Fuinjutsu, only adept.

He walked to the cell at the end of the corridor, lit on both sides by a torches. Using his other hand, he released a second burst of stolen chakra, unlocking the door. Looking at the prisoner within, hollow-eyed and pale-skinned, Kabuto smiled in satisfaction.

"Hello, Tayuya."

"...mph?" She looked in his general direction, pupils unfocused. The rags she wore only covered her axial body, exposing her bone-thin limbs to the fullest. None of the usual fight was coming from her. He hadn't heard a single cuss word yet.

In an instant he closed the distance between them, flipping through hand-seals to deactivate the seals locking her chakra. He did not open the cuffs binding her ankles and wrists to the wall with short chains. Kabuto removed the cork of a bottle containing two pills, one red and one blue.

The latter he popped in her mouth, letting it slide down her throat with a small burst of water from his own mouth, a Water Bullet jutsu of the lowest magnitude. Using chakra scalpels in with inhuman precision and severed her vocal chords, healing the wounds before she could bleed a drop on the floor.

The girl winced and twisted as he chakra reserves were forcefully topped.

Kabuto simply slapped a self-made seal to mute all sound as she caused a ruckus.

Aware of the short time, he bent forward and shoved the red forbidden health pill down her throat, and stepped back.

Tayuya's mouth contorted in a horrific scream, like a perverted mask of human agony. Chains rankled as her hands reached for her throat to tear it open with her nails, struggling before she gave up and started throwing her back against the wall, tears streaming from her eyes.

Kabuto gazed impassively.

Both pills were his own design, and he was 75% certain she would live through it, owing to her adjustment to the curse mark. Her newly replenished chakra began to break down and supply her body with accelerated regeneration, visibly restoring her muscle and weight. Flesh gurgled beneath skin and pulsed, swelling, and then staying there.

Her vocal chords re-healed and Kabuto severed them again; his sound barrier would break with her high-pitched wails. With another final shudder, she stopped.

"There, there, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" Kabuto gave a heartless smile behind his mask as tears kept running down her still face. He wrinkled his nose at the mess underneath her legs, but it was understandable.

Feeling her pulse, he recognized her going into shock and jump-started her heart.

Three minutes had passed. Kabuto had a window of ten. It was within calculations. That was the reason why Tayuya had been chosen, despite being physically weaker than the others. Her extraction gave Kabuto time.

Double-timing back, the spy masked his chakra and with a chakra-sealing tag cloaked hers as well. He was well underground, but he didn't necessarily need to make it to the surface. Within the branch were ROOT tunnels, of which Kabuto knew of but the ANBU didn't.

And many ROOT shinobi were out in the field performing high rank missions, or supplementing the village ANBU ranks, also short-staffed. Unless he went tried to go to their base, the chances of running into one was slim.

Danzo could be so predictable sometimes.

Kabuto snuck his way out from underneath T&I to a playground, changing his outfit to his usual and disguising Tayuya's form with a genjutsu. Then he used Hiding Like a Mole Jutsu to dig himself out several feet above alongside his rescue.

The kids were laughably easy to use Genjutsu on as Kabuto snuck away from the scene, scampering into a thicket of trees that led all the way to Konoha's boundary walls barring some small housing colonies on the way he knew to avoid and traps he knew to dodge.

It had been eight minutes.

He practically tore through the trees as fast as he could with his chakra suppressed until he reached the wall and body-flickered to outside of Konoha.

Just in time.

"Keep her in one piece." He told his contact, a blank faced kid of about sixteen years. He nodded mutely ruffled his pockets to show tranquilizer darts, in case the girl got any funny ideas when she came to. "Good, you're not as incompetent as I thought."

The boy wordlessly tied the girl to his back, restraining her limbs in the process. And then he took off in the right direction.

Kabuto snuck back up the wall, palming a deck of playing cards, now in his usual clothes.

"Yo, Kogoro-san!" He greeted the chunin, not having to fake being out of breath. The on-duty ninja looked at him and laughed, lighting up a cigarette.

"Man, medical ninjas sure get tired easily. At least you got the cards." Kabuto walked out and handed him the deck. The man flicked through the cards and whistled at the artwork.

"A-ah, sorry! They belonged to a senpai of mine, and he thought they'd help me in studying anatomy." Kabuto scratched his cheek, appearing meek and nervous.

Kogoro the chunin patted his back, giving him a sly grin. "Anatomy, _sure_. I've seen prostitutes in more clothing than these ladies." Said he, leering at the artwork on the deck, the back of cards an innocent red background with white borders.

"I'm s-serious, they're not mine." Kabuto protested.

"Sure, sure." The chunin began walking away, browsing the very distracting cards. "Now you coming or what? My break just started, so you came in perfect time to grab a seat at my table."

Kabuto smiled goofily. "Some other time, Kogoro-san. I need to get back to the hospital."

Elsewhere, an alarm had sounded two minutes ago.

* * *

Hyuga Hinata came a bit too late to catch Sasuke at the library. Sakura had told her he'd ran away from someone, but would still be sneaking around the village.

"Did you ask him yet?" The Hyuga heiress asked the kunoichi softly, and she shook her head.

"No... it's kind of hard. Sasuke-kun has very good instincts when it comes to certain people."

Hinata twiddled her fingers, wondering why Sasuke would regard Kabuto-san with such suspicion. The medic-nin had healed her after her match with Neji, and also after invasion when complication arose with her heart. Her father was indebted to the polite boy.

And then she heard from her graduating girls of her class, among other gossip, how Sasuke almost had a grudge against Kabuto. Sakura had spoken about him to warn them, but Ino had outright laughed at her. When the pink-haired girl told her that Sasuke was the one suggesting they be wary, the Yamanaka had paused, and then changed the topic.

She herself had met with the silver-haired genin many times for follow-ups, and could find nothing weird about him. He was just a very kind person. Perhaps Sasuke had grown paranoid about people being nice to him considering he was the Last Uchiha, always thinking they had an ulterior motive. And many of them no doubt did.

But Hinata couldn't make herself believe it was Kabuto.

Now that she had been declared fully fit for duty, she needed answers, and she would not fear Uchiha Sasuke in order to defend a person she was very grateful towards.


End file.
